Vacacaca Part 1 in Book Two: The Fifteenth Year of the Third Millennium of the Common Era

Part One of Vacation Posting.

Haven’t had time to keep up with reading as I had wanted. WILL catch up sometime!

Monday, Day 1
Woke up at 6 am..... then went back to sleep a few hours later, lol. This is notable because we STILL talk about 2003… the last BIG non-wedding/funeral reunion… I was, gosh, 19 years old. I wore all black and slept most of the day. OBVIOUSLY this was before my diagnosis. BUT… as that was the last reunion… everybody was worried that I was a vampire. Frankly… I am. Sunlight is NOT my friend. Sleep is TOTALLY my friend. ANYWAY… modernity: woke early, took care of shit, went back to sleep. Was awakened by the WONDERFUL sounds of my niece joyfully calling out to her Mama. Seriously, the joy in that expression from her is a SONG to me. After that, Wife and I went with my mom to the store to pick some stuff up. Then we came back, took a walk, had dinner, and played an UPROARIOUS game of Cards Against Humanity. My family is hilarious and my wife LOVES my family. Which… makes some things an issue. My SIL? Beautiful and focused on career. Cousin S? Brilliant and funny. Cousin J? Beautiful and Brilliant. I could go on. Ultimately… Wife married the “genetic garbage” of the family (not even MY wording… seriously. The family is AWESOME but comparatively I’m Dunce Class of The S class which means… I’m great, but sucky, lol)… anyway… she married the genetic garbage of the family and feels like she herself is garbage for it. It is frustrating because… I love her, deeply… I find her gorgeous… she is wonderful in so many ways… but she hates herself SO much… thinks SO poorly of herself… and is SO inside of her own mind… that even after an awesome night with family… she has excuses. “They put up with me because I’m married to you”… “They’re so much more attractive then me!” All that shit.

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Monday, Day 2
Sleepy day because Wife, Parents, and I were on KP duty. KP was a little difficult. One of my cousins is a 16 year old with Down Syndrome. We love him but lately… he has become considerably more aggressive and downright sexual. His parents don’t do much about it. He was trying to trip me as I brought food out for 20 people… and finally I said, “(NAME), I’m working. Stop.” My mom told me I was handling “a special needs person far too harshly.” Grumph. He’s accosting his cousins and everyone turns a blind eye? Bothersome. Afterwards, Wife and I hung out with some of the cousins swapping stories and laughing like mad. Wife got… considerably drunk during but it was a fun and good time.

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Wednesday, Day 3
Much more busy day. We slept in a bit after the late night and woke up to Niece saying good morning to Wife and I by name. Cute… Except she was supposed to be down for her first of 3 naps, so her parents were unhappy… With us, for some reason. So Wife and I went for a walk.

Where Wife said that she feels we haven’t participated in enough activities or done enough. Okay, fine… there are a lot of things we could do that we have not taken advantage of. I give her the long list of things to do and she says she’ll think about them. Then back to the cabin… which, if I haven’t mentioned it before… is two bedrooms/1 bathroom… my parents, my wife and I, and my brother his wife and daughter. Anyway… go back to the cabin… Niece is still taking a nap (or… who knows… with her parents… maybe taking ANOTHER nap).... and my parents tell us that the whole family (cabin, in this case, not the extended) is booked on a 2 pm boat ride. Hooray. So Wife and I take care of some stuff in the room (mostly making our extremely small space less cluttered .... almost impossible as the entirety of the floor space is covered by the bed. And then all of us have a late lunch. Of course, even though Grandma and Grandpa (called G’bump and BoomPa) are present (as well as Uncle and Aunty) nobody can help Bro or SIL feed Niece. So it becomes a big production. Fine, whatever. Niece is smiling the whole time because she knows she owns her parents. She demands, after lunch is over, to go to the park. Mama promises they will go to the park when she finishes eating.... but when she finishes eating it is 1:40. We have to be down for this cruise G’bump and BoomPa booked. Nope. A promise to a 2 year old is a promise that must be kept! So SIL and Niece go to the park while the rest of us have to hurry our asses to make certain that the boat doesn’t take off without all of us.

We arrive and the boat trip is mostly fine. Niece’s first time on a boat, loves it, loves the water, screams at the top of her lungs when Daddy pulls her back from the edge of the boat. NOT a big deal.... seriously. She’s 2. When she doesn’t get her way, she is going to throw a super-tantrum. That happens. Apparently, that STOPS the world for her parents. Which means they have to stop every world around them until Daughter is taken care of. On a boat? For fuck’s sake!

BUT… I love my niece and I want to try to encourage her parents that they can count on Grandparents and Uncle to take care of their daughter every now and again. So… when the decision is for all of us to go to the indoor pool (because the cold air will make Niece sick if they use the lake or outdoor pool), I sign on. I encourage Wife to sign on as well. So there in the pool is SIL, Bro, Niece, my Dad, and Me. Wife refuses to get into the pool, which we’ll get back to. We’re doing okay. Niece doesn’t want to be IN the water but doesn’t want to get OUT of the pool, so she’s on a flotation device. No worries. All is good. Then she keeps trying to get off the flotation device to get on the stairs into/out of the pool. Whatever. But her parents take their eye off of her as she, for a change, decides to jump from the stairs to the flotation device. She misses… one foot on the device, one foot still on the stairs. So, since she can’t swim yet, I grabbed her before she went underwater. I try to “right her” again to make sure she is okay but in doing so, I put her on her back. Honestly, THE position that I was trained to prevent drowning… if someone is on their back, then their head is above water and their mouth doesn’t suck in more water. Niece lets out a blood curdling scream and now the parents attention is back on what is going on. Being on her back in the water upsets her, so I did something wrong. Proving to them why they have to spend their vacation avoiding the family, NOT letting other people around the baby, and in general being GIANT pains in the ass about “No, we have to take care of Niece.”

But, I’ll be honest… it is me, here. I’m so used to my brother making me feel like garbage-encrusted shit, it doesn’t even bother me anymore. But I said I’d get to the wife who refused to get into the pool. Everyone decides to leave (because, y’know, I ruined the good time) and Wife is off in a corner being quiet. I start to dry off and ask her what she wants to do next. Her response: I don’t know. I lay out the options we discussed before. Her response: I don’t know. I narrow it down to two options; her response: I don’t know. I say, “Okay, you wanted us to be more involved, let’s paddle boat.” Her response: No. “Okay, ping pong” No. Any suggestion I give, her response is no. So I stop giving suggestions and just towel off. But you know what I’m thinking the whole time? This is EXACTLY like her “job thing.” She wants to do something but doesn’t know what… you give her options, it isn’t good enough… you flat out tell her what to do, she says no… you ask her (AGAIN) what she wants and she doesn’t know. So… there is no solution, there is no resolution, she won’t be happy, and any suggestion given is wrong.

She leaves the pool area while I finish drying off and then walk out to her. We’re now in a small area just outside of the pool with benches and such. I ask her “What is it that she would like to do for the next 3 hours until dinner?” Her response is a vehement “I don’t know.” I suggest paddle boats, her response is a firm “No.” So I tell her, we’ll just sit here and wait for her to decide what she wants to do. We sit there, in silence, for about 10 minutes. We’re outside so Wife has thick reflective sunglasses on. But I take a closer look and notice that there’s something up. I can’t see her eyes but I can see her cheeks and I realize (so I ask immediately) “Wife, are you crying?”

She was. She was pretty much sobbing. Because… of how much she hates herself. We talked a LOT and I mean a LOT a LOT a LOT !
And there are a few repeated motifs involved.
(1) She sees how the men in my family are affectionate to their wives. And realizes and acknowledges that I come by my behavior naturally. But something about how I do it bothers her. And she wishes I could be more manly. But she feels bad about that because she realizes that showing affection to your wife, from the perspective of my family, IS manly. And so she gets in this loop where my affection annoys her, then she’s annoyed that she’s annoyed.
(2) She hates herself with equal and elevated passion as to how much anything is anything. Seriously (and I said this to her)… she sees my family and I see my family. I see a successful, smart person that has this flaw or that flaw… Wife sees a successful and smart person and compares herself to it and feels like a failure and an idiot. She sees people on the beach and I see people on the beach. I see a tanned teenager with an impressive rack… Wife sees the same person but instantly thinks “I’m too pale, I’m too old, I’m too fat, and I’m hideous.” And seriously… even though it was just swimming with family she said that she didn’t get in the pool because (1) she felt too fat and unattractive; and (2) she didn’t see the point of joining the family… at all.
G.A.H! And it goes back into a loop on THIS too! Because she realizes that all of this thinking is self-harming and self-centered; and she feels bad that she’s so conceited. So… her loop here is “I suck and I hate myself. But I’m focusing on myself too much so I REALLY suck and I REALLY hate myself for doing that!”

Ultimately… divorce is still on the table. Because as much as I love her, as attractive as I find her, and as much as I want her in my life… if she isn’t willing to do anything about this? I mean… how am I expected to love a wife who is more passionately in hate with herself than she could ever be in love with me? How can I accept life with a woman who is so repulsed by every inch of herself to even question whether she is attracted to me? And we talked about this. And I pretty much said… I can’t force you to do anything. But a family vacation is overwhelming you and making you feel shitty. You need to get help. And maybe I don’t get this job in Adel that I want. YOU still need to look for help. Because… no matter what happens in this world, you really do need to take care of yourself.

That whole conversation took 2 hours. We walked back to the cabin and Dad was asleep and Mom was hanging out away from the cabin. Niece was down FOR ANOTHER NAP; so Bro and SIL were adamant that we make NO noise. Apparently, they told us later, that even though my Dad was in the cabin and their daughter was asleep… they were about to “have fun” and we interrupted them. So another reason to make them upset with us. Frankly, I’m fucking over it. But it definitely affected Wife. An hour later as we were going to dinner, she told me that she was getting damned sick of Bro and SIL’s imperious “better than thou” attitude. I simply said, “Welcome to my last 30 years.” Because… yeah. It is easy to think that Bro and SIL are these brilliant, beautiful, successful people.... but live with them for more than three days, and you’ll discover one of the reasons that they are so good at looking successful is that anything that goes wrong is somebody else’s fault. The baby doesn’t sleep through her 4th nap? Somebody else woke her up! Never mind the fact that (and I watched this happen) the baby is saying “Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!” until SIL checks on her at which point she laughs and giggles. Guess what?! She’s playing a game… she calls you in, you walk in, she doesn’t have to go to sleep. I’m sorry that quietly opening a door on the other end of the cabin made a squeak… but it sure as fuck isn’t my fault that your two year old isn’t asleep… especially since you woke her up from a nap to feed her dinner, then an hour later, put her down again for another nap! Maybe if she were sick or running a fever but… for fuck’s sake! Stop using your child as a way to avoid your family and especially stop using your child as a way to be a dick to your family.

So Wednesday was a big… fuck day. Wife has a 3 hour melt down. Bro and SIL go full shitty. ALL on the day I get potentially good news in the fact that I have an interview for a job I really want. The end of the night was Wife and I hanging out with the extendeds. My grandfather’s brother’s grand daughters and grandsons. All our age. All successful, funny, bright, and fun to hang around. So Wife and I enjoy their company. But… as was evident by Wife’s drinking tonight… being surrounded by successful, funny, bright, and fun people make Wife feel super shitty about herself… making her feel (again and even more) like a failure, a bore, and idiot, and a buzzkill. Honestly… I wish I was as much of an asshole as my brother wants people to believe he is… because then I could walk away from this marriage without hard feelings and just… find the fun. But… Wife is family. And Family is Family. And even when Family is being an asshole, or a giant fuck, or fucking up her marriage… family is family.

Tomorrow, we’re set to Parasail, go to an amusement park, eat some great food, and play another Cards Against Humanity game.