Dealing with Ambiguity

I'm not very good at not knowing what's going to happen next.  Wait, no - that's not true at all.  I'm not very good at not knowing what's going to happen next with regards to my partner - it doesn't really bother me much at all with anybody else.

This morning I woke because the lights were on and my partner was up.  It was really quite early - still grey and cool, barely light.  We were out late last night and not in bed until after midnight.  I also remember him being uncomfortable with indigestion, and the dog not being very well not long before bed, so I called out, thinking something might be wrong.  Everything was fine.  He came in to say goodbye.  He has a seven thirty am golf game, an hour and a bit more of a drive away.  "Oh, didn't I tell you that?".  Nope, not at all.

Damn.  Why does that annoy me/upset me/throw me off kilter as much as it does?  I don't really know. You know what?  I really like it when he goes out for a half day or a day and I get the day to myself at home.  It's really peaceful and I don't feel guilty to sit and write, or read.  He's off doing something recreational, so why should I kill myself over the housework, truly.  I get tired of the constant tv and radio when he's here too.  I struggle to sit quietly and write with noise streaming through the house and also, he's not one of those people who just watches, if I'm anywhere within a sight line, he wants to chat too.  That's lovely - but not conducive to writing!

I know that if I want to write, I should go and lock myself away somewhere - but I don't really have that somewhere and often I'll have been sitting happily at the kitchen table, blogging away, or writing in my journal, or whatever, and along he'll come and settle in to the lounge to watch telly.  We have terrible reception too - so telly is often accompanied with horrible digital sounds or these kind of, well, popping sort of sounds, through the speakers.  I find it really unsettling and difficult to focus or relax with that sound invading my space.  Oh well, the joys of shared living I guess.

Anyway.  Off to golf he's gone.  Now that I have had a chance to digest the information, it's just fine.  It's just the waking up to it and being taken by surprise by it that throws me off.  I tried not to seem upset or to harp on about it.  I feel like I've said so many times that I don't like it.  He must have remembered last night as he was going to bed that he was going.  I'm certain he must have had to set an alarm.  What would be wrong with just saying at that point - hey - did I tell you I'm playing golf tomorrow, far from home, and leaving early?  Would that be hard?

*sigh*

I guess I just need to adjust my attitude.  It's easier to change my own expectations rather than hope to change anybody else!

Not working really helps

I feel so much better when I don't have to drag myself off to my job every day.  I love being on leave.  It's not that I don't want to work at all, or ever again, it's just that the fatigue of my working weeks leaves me emotionally unstable and prone to flare ups.

How do I deal with that?  I guess in reality I need to find an alternative source of income.  I don't think I'm some kind of amazing entrepreneur or anything like that.  I haven't got a block buster or best selling novel bubbling just beneath the surface, ready to spring forth at any given moment.  I just don't.

I'm dedicated, willing to work, happy to turn my hand to pretty much anything and not fussy about hourly rates.  I just need to make sure I pay for the roof over our heads and put meals on our table.  Nothing huge - just steady steady plod plod.  The biggest problem with that of course is that I myself am not very steady steady plod plod.  I'm flighty, moody, unpredictable and get bored/frustrated quite easily.

I love change.  I love variety.  I don't do 40 hours a week ongoing, particularly well.  I'm pretty fine with 80 hours a week, sometimes.  I'm pretty OK with 14 hour days and more, for a festival or such, provided there's recovery afterwards.  I love only working 20 to 30 hours a week if it's going to be a longer commitment (a year or so, say).  I'm totally crap at this full time, eat all of your time take all of your focus bullshit.  I just don't do it well at all!

How and when am I going to change this?

Well, I put my hand up for a redundancy from my job.  I don't know if I'll be approved.  The organisation I work for is going through a period of quite massive cuts, but one of my managers seemed to think that my position was not one that could be abolished.  We shall see.  My case is up for consideration.  That's all I can do - ask, then hope.

What will I do if they give me a package?  It won’t be a big one by any manner of means.  I haven’t been there for that long.  It will be enough to put a little dent in my mortgage and to maybe close out a few minor debts of mine.  It will be gone within the first 30 days of my receiving it, basically.  It wouldn’t be enough for me to live on, or off, in any way.

So basically I would need to look for other work pretty much straight away.  My first day at home that was a week/work day I would need to sit straight down and update my resume and start applying for jobs.  At least, that’s how I see it.  I think it’s too early for me to be out of the full, or nearly full time workforce.  There’s just too many bills I need to pay and still kids to support etc.

So what would be the point?

I guess there are two main drivers.  One is that no matter how small in comparison with what others might be eligible for, there is a lump sum involved.  That lump sum would go mostly against my mortgage, and would make that horrible big debt number a bit smaller.  That would be great, because it sometimes feels like no matter how much I pay off that damn thing, that mortgage barely shrinks at all, and sometimes it grows.  I hate it.  I’d like to be rid of it.  Or at least to see a significantly smaller number!

So there’s driver number one.  Money.

Driver number two is to get away from what I am doing right now, work wise.  Change.  I like change.  I’m so tired of that location and I’m so tired of that commute.  I could probably even deal with a commute that was as long.  As long as it was to somewhere else!  I love the freshness of new jobs, new workmates, and of learning new things.  I don’t mind what.  I’ve never had any particular grand plan in life about where I am going, in a career (or any other) sense.  I just love to be part of things that are bigger than me.  I like to make things happen.  I like to feel like I have something, no matter how small, to contribute.  And I love to learn - anything, everything, anywhere, anytime.

Driver number two is change.  Because I enjoy change.

So cross your fingers for me that my redundancy gets approved/accepted.  I’d very much like to have both of those things - money, and change.  Once it has happened, then I’ll deal with the next step - where our meals will come from ongoing.  I can do that, I know I can.  I’ve done it many times!

A bit wobbly

I'm struggling a bit at the moment again.  I get teary and exhausted, a bit (I guess you could say) paranoid about my partners commitment to me and his intentions.  I get upset fairly easily and in the last week or so at work I noticed that I was being quite negative about one thing or another.

Thank goodness for time off over Christmas.  I guess most people get a week or too.  Me also.  It will hopefully give me a bit of time to unwind and reset.  I really need it.  I hate it when I get like this.  I'm tired of the tears and the churning feelings, the anxiety and the stress of it all.

Just stop then, you say.  Easier said than done, it seems.  I'd love to!  I try.  I really really work at it.  The dog still comes back to bite me.  Yesterday a gift hamper that arrived on my doorstep left me in floods of tears.  I'm so underprepared for Christmas it just left me feeling guilty and unable to reciprocate that.  When the hell did gratitude have to be replaced by guilt?

Anyway.  I'll do my best to make it a happy and memorable Christmas for my kids.  In whatever way I can.  I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

My son wants to go to a friends to play now and has run out of activities to happily entertain himself here so this is going to be brief.

I'm tired, again.  I'm so tired of being tired.  I'm so tired of hearing myself whine about being tired too!  I don't think I'm plotting recovery right now and I'm really scared that what I'm documenting is the beginnings of a relapse.

Wish me luck as I struggle to find balance and happiness at this very challenging time of year.

Breaking Bad

I'm watching an episode of a tv series called 'Breaking Bad'.  It's not really what I logged in here to write about, but it's ended up being on the telly in front of me and it's pretty gripping.  It's one of those shows that I can't help but watch.  My ten year old son hates it.  My partner and I find that really interesting ... he will play violent video games quite happily, but this show, which is violent in a very real and gritty sense, but which is also darkly humorous, my son finds terrifying.

Anyway - what else is going on for me?  I had a pretty serious falling out with the father of my son during the week.  Usually I do my best to keep the peace between us for the sake of making my son's life good.  This week though, some things finally got to me, and I finally cracked.  There had just been one too many demands for more money and too few equivalent contributions for items like clothing.

Sadly, when I crack, I crack.  I didn't handle the situation that well I suppose.  I don't like being hung up on, over and over again.  In the end I went to visit my ex, knowing that my son was at a friends for a play for the afternoon.  When I got there, he indicated that he did not want to talk.  I said that we needed to, that he needed to listen to me, that there were things that we needed to sort out.  He said "you are angry, go away, I don't want to talk to you now, today".  I refused to leave.  He threatened to call the police if I did not.  I told him go ahead.

Obviously, once a conversation starts going down those roads, it's not going anywhere good.  Anyway - my ex went out on his veranda and made a call on his mobile phone and then left the house.  Before he left he said to me: "you'd better leave before the police get here".  I thought about it and figured that leaving when the police are on there way to get you is not a good move from a 'criminal action' perspective, though I don't really know.  I've never had a whole lot to do with the law.  I did hear my ex give my name, date of birth and address over the phone though, so I made a cup of tea and stuck around.

I sat on the deck with my cup of tea and waited.  I sipped my tea and I waited.  I finished my tea, and the police had still not arrived so I phoned my ex (location uncertain) and asked how long the police had said they'd be.  He sounded angry and said they had not been specific.  I didn't want to spend my whole evening waiting, so I called the local police station and enquired.  They said they didn't have any call logged about me at all.  The officer on the phone got a bit annoyed and said: "do you want to log a call or not?".  At that stage, I thought, OK .... lets go with this.  My lying, passive aggressive, bully boy ex wants to play head games, lets go with this.  I told them that they'd better come on over as my ex was adamant that he'd called them to make a complaint about me.

Anyway - things have settled down a bit since then.  We've got a draft parenting plan that we are working on and there seems to be some boundaries back in place.  I don't know where it will go from here, but hopefully, hopefully ... not all to shit.

The guys on Breaking Bad are brewing poison out of beans now, to deal with a drug dealer who they want to get rid of.  I don't think my situation will get to that.