MONday in Book Five: Working Through the Maze 2018

Wow. I knew that the community would be supportive; but PB hit their target goal before I could even access the website today!! Impressive! :) Wife has authorized me to donate a specific amount and, while it may not be as generous as I would otherwise chose to be, I’m glad that I can donate to PB without trying to hide it or figure out some underhanded way of doing it.

My Monday was really nothing extravagant. I woke up. Got annoyed by my insistent erection. I’m not going to do a comparison on anatomy between men and women because long run… women have it worse. I’m not going to argue that. Periods and Morning Sickness and pregnancy and… yeah. So I’m saying that right up front. With that being said, a persistent erection is annoying. At least it is to me because I know that only one of three things is going to happen. (1) It will go away on its own by the time I get dressed; (2) It will go away on its own after I get dressed, usually cursing my underwear with an inappropriate precum spot of wetness to enjoy during the morning hours; (3) I’ll have to take care of it myself. So… yeah. I suppose if I woke up with a persistent erection and was greeted by a partner or individual eager to enjoy… it might be different… as for now, it is annoying.

I got dressed and went to the Convenience Store to make sure I had caffeine enough for my drive. Drove to the interview. Garrett County isn’t bad per se… just… not lively. The county seat is 2700 people with absolutely nothing going on. North of there about a 30 minute’s drive is the only city with rentals available but due to its community college, the city itself at least is 5,000 people. Sleepy but survivable. If I do end up getting this job? Internet. Going those first two months in Tiny Town with no internet was brutal. Fuck that. Internet E-Mail, Internet Communication, Playstation Games.... yeah. Internet is a necessity.

The interview itself was okay. The county seems busy… the County Attorney fell ill and died and that whole process actually damaged the county’s reputation a lot. Apparently, the County reputation is like Tiny Town but this new CA actually wants to change that. So that could be good. Plus, there’s actually a bloody staff and the ingrained use of computers, internet, and innovative software… so that could be good.

After the interview and the meeting of people; I checked out the County Seat realty options. Houses looked small from the outside but their online descriptions were acceptable. Not that I’m looking to buy right now anyway. Even if I do get the job, I’m not my brother. I’m not going to immediately buy a house and then wonder what to do with it. Having done that, I took a detour up north to the Community College City. I gave myself a nice driving tour of the area in an attempt to find the one Apartment Complex but was unable to locate it. That could be a problem if I get the job. I sent the Complex an e-mail via Apartments.com and if I don’t hear anything by Wednesday afternoon, I’ll give them a call. I’m not behaving as though “I certainly have this job!” but in case I get the call, I want to be as prepared as possible to move quickly. After that, I drove home.

I’d been home for maybe 30 minutes before Wife came home from work. When she got in, she looked fairly miserable. Before I continue, I will say that at least Wife is showing signs of insight. After her sobbing and whining and complaining and carping today… she did take the time to acknowledge that she knows she’s just conflating things and making big deals out of small things and she knows that it isn’t how things should be. Now, she also admits that she doesn’t think she can get better, which is concerning, but at least she’s acknowledging the problem.

The reason(s) she looked miserable coming home were many and varied.

(1) What I had been expecting to hit yesterday about the Convention hit her today. She had considered all of these varying possibilities about what meeting David Tennant would be like and what she would say and what she would do and on and on and on. Of course, you can contemplate a hundred different scenarios but only one of them will every actually play out. Mix that with Wife’s painful inability to adapt to situations and… the combination (this time) resulted in tears and depression. Because while it is true that the worst case scenario didn’t happen neither did the best case scenario. But that isn’t even the crux of it. Basically… she had all these scenarios still playing out in her head (and due to an inability to adapt) had no idea what to do with them. So they were playing out in her mind and they made her sad.

(2) Her job. Again. She said that her job makes her feel inferior, stupid, less than… one of her exact quotes was that she feels like “the help” and feels bad that she’s working at the same time as the scientists since she’s so far beneath them. Have I mentioned she has a huge complex where she is always comparing everything and everyone? Thing of it is… she is doing important work. Scientists use dozens (sometimes hundreds) of different instruments and tools. If those instruments and tools are not properly cleaned and sterilized, all of their research is meaningless. It would be an abuse of resources to make the scientists do their own cleaning and sterilization… thus Wife’s job. But… doing that job and walking among/working among the scientists makes her feel inferior and stupid. I suggested that the issue may be the Wal Mart Transition. She felt superior and that she was doing something that was beneath her for 15 years… now that she is doing this job she is feeling inferior because that sense of superiority is gone. She disagreed but didn’t counter with anything other than restating her feelings of inferiority.

(3) The conversation about work led her to declare that she wishes she had gone back to school instead of getting a job. This is… complicated… by many factors. First, she already has a BA. Second, she had an opportunity to go back to school via a Community College when I worked in Tiny Town and she rejected the opportunity. Third, I’ve encouraged her (due to my own experience in this category) that if she is at all serious about “returning to school” then she needs to start calling places… not to see if she can get in, but for advice on how to do what she thinks she wants to do. That is how I made the Law School decisions I made. She has called zero people. Fourth, she’s already declaring that if I get the Garrett job, since we’ll be living in a Community College City, it’ll be “so much easier to take advantage of that opportunity.” Meanwhile, I’m still thinking “Lady… make the phone calls. Find out what the best way to do things is. Don’t just say, ‘I didn’t do things right the first time, but surely I’ll be able to guess at how to do them right this time!”

(4) Of course… me encouraging her to take the steps to discover what she needs to do aren’t “helpful.” Because she knows what she needs to do. “But that doesn’t help her emotionally.”

(5) What was perhaps the biggest surprise during her cry/whine/carp was that she felt that she was overwhelmed with anxiety and disappointment over how the Jones Job turned out. Apparently, she really wanted me to get that job. I don’t know if it was the huge pay check, or the separation, or the location, or what.... but apparently she wanted me to get that job and was saddened and disappointed that it didn’t work out. And she was anxious because that sends us “back into not knowing what’s going to happen.” For example… I may get Garrett, I may not. I may get Que, I may not. I may get Web, I may not. And that uncertainty is causing her great mental and emotional stress.

(6) Lastly, she was crying because she feels like there is too much of a mess in her brain and she is terrified that there’s nothing that can be done to help her feel better or get better or approach being more mentally healthy.

Obviously, I listened. I tried to help. And I suggested that if her current therapist wasn’t helping her feel like she was making forward progress, then there is no shame in finding someone who is willing to help as long as she is being honest with herself and her therapist about what is going on and what she most wants help with.

And that was my Monday!

Hopefully Tuesday will be
Food Shopping
Working Out
Voting
Cooking
Unloading Dishwasher
Doing two loads of laundry
Reading Prosebox
Playing Video Games
.... and who knows… maybe more