got my heart beating in 2013-2014

We’re hitting crunch time with respect to paying the rent on time. I’m on a poverty diet, trying to limit my meals and generally binging on things like pasta and potatoes. Aaron brought me soda and cheese because he loves me.

He had a developing heat rash on Sunday night, so he took a full dose of Benadryl when he got here after his gaming session and then we crashed–and slept for 12 hours. It was 2pm when we woke up. That is absolutely insane for him. I vaguely remember his soft phone alarm chirping twice and being silenced. Welp, there goes church. At least the nightmares stopped.

I was increasingly fussy for conscious time together, so we lied around watching The Simpsons marathon. When he got up to leave, I was passive aggressive about it, he called me out, I acknowledged, and then things sort of collapsed into a whiny, sniveling hashing of it out. General stress levels had me teary, and he teared up at least once, and we hugged and fussed and cuddled in an extremely fussy manner until the words were out and fault was accepted both ways. He was internalizing too much, and I felt like an obligation being checked off a list; I’m too stressed out about everything, not eating or sleeping well, and not asking for help. We will try to be better about this, and have more deliberate time-together dates. We will come up with an alternative alarm system so we don’t miss church again.

In the end, he stood me up and told me to come with him to the card game with two friends and his sister. I had the DS he’s lent me and a book to keep me occupied. But mostly, I was to get the hell out of the house, and he would feed me, and we would be together. Things snapped back together after that. In the car, we shakily high-fived for our conflict resolution skills and concluded that as awesome as our communication skills are, we hadn’t eaten at all and it was almost 5pm, which was probably not helping. So we stopped for food and he bought me tacos, and we went to Luke’s place where he gave me a brand new game of Pokemon to play and I curled up in a chair next to him for the next few hours, until the battery died and it was time to go home. It was good. He was right: I needed that. And I need to ask for help and say when I’m stressed and need more from him. I just feel bad about doing that, because his job sucks, we’re both playing the avoid-the-student-loan-company’s-phone-calls game, and I don’t want to be an additional burden.

This morning, I woke to one of the aforementioned calls, but didn’t drop back to sleep. So I played Pokemon and waited for drowsiness, which oddly, didn’t occur. But at about 11am, what did occur was a job offer from the ritzy engineering firm!

I HAS JOB. I AM GAINFULLY EMPLOYED PENDING SUCCESSFUL DRUG TEST TOMORROW. I DID THE PAPERWORK, TWO HOURS OF IT, THIS AFTERNOON. I. AM. EMPLOYED.

Little glitch is that I start working after Labor Day, September 2, and the rent is due September 5. I get paid weekly, but I don’t think I’m going to have all of it in hand by COB Friday. There’s still hope that my retirement check comes in in the next two weeks–I got a letter dated August 18 saying that my application had been accepted, and the phone call I made last week to double-check that everything was good to go was confirmed, with the nice woman mentioning that the check was being done. So there’s a chance that all my hair-pulling is for naught. Wouldn’t that be nice.

BUT I HAVE A JOOOBBB!

I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY MOVED TO CHARLESTON AND GOTTEN MYSELF EMPLOYED

WELL, ACTUALLY

JESUS HAS SUCCESSFULLY MOVED ME TO CHARLESTON AND GOTTEN ME EMPLOYED

I mean, technically I’m a contractor through a staffing agency, but who freaking cares, a job is a job right now. I haven’t been in town for a month; I need a foot in the door economically however I can get it and to limit this period of funemployment on my resume.

Meanwhile, Aaron’s job took a turn for the worse. He’s in the worst part of town for traffic, with rush hour commutes, and today they had him digging ditches for nine freaking hours. He’s actively job hunting as well and is probably going to jump for the call center gig. It pays better than he’s getting now and has benefits, of which he has none. It starts the end of September. Maybe by October we can be… uh, in some kind of position to start trying to pay for our wedding.

Tonight I went to Aaron’s place and watched wrestling with him and his sister and brother, alternately. We played on our own respective devices while shiny, oiled men threw each other around on TV. I nestled in his lap and he kissed the top of my head and advised me on my game. I rubbed his sore back and coached him through some yoga positions that popped something big in his spine, and it was a really, really nice night. We need more of those, we agreed. We used to have them all the time when we were in Athens (for lack of better options, really).

Tomorrow, we have a dinner project with his sister. After that comes football.

It’s not easy, and we keep accidentally clothes-lining ourselves, but we’re making this work.