It's Just Water, After All

I am crying.

I am crying because I am tired.  Because I have had a long week of exceedingly early mornings, late nights, and not much down time in between, and I have had my two kids with me almost the entire time with no break, no rest, no help.

I am crying because I am sexually frustrated, and because I feel unwanted unless he's aroused and desperate, and blamed when he's frustrated because I am exhausted and don't wake up when he climbs into bed after I've fallen asleep, and makes advances.

I am crying because while I was working all week a crockpot full of pot roast was rotting on the counter, even days after I asked him to please empty it, because while I was away last week he put it on to warm but then left it out, so it has been festering for 8 days.

I am crying because one of the cats has suddenly started peeing and pooping on the table, the kitchen counter, in the hallway, and on the clean laundry in the hamper that I haven't folded because I haven't had time.

I am crying because I am supposed to be sewing a quilt for a charity auction but I can't seem to get it done; every time I try someone or something else needs my attention, and so for the first time in my life I will break my word and be a worthless oathbreaker.

I am crying because the dryer vent hose keeps detaching from the wall vent, and he said he would fix it more than a week ago but hasn't, so I have had to squeeze into the tiny space between dryer and wall and try to fix it so I can do laundry.

I am crying because he gets angry at the mess I haven't cleaned up because I am trying to clean up the beer bottles, the bottles caps (which I usually find with my feet), the spilled booze, coffee, water, seasoning mix, vomit in the sink, shit on the toilet seat, and other assorted messes he leaves behind but swears he doesn't.

I am crying because I have pulled or done something to a muscle in my neck/shoulder area and it hurts, hurts, hurts and I can't do anything about it because there is so much I have to do around the house and holding the toddler makes it worse but she WILL be held or whine, whine, whine, cry, cry, cry and I will scream at her to shut the fuck up because I will break, have broken, and can't stand the fucking noise, noise, noise.

I am crying because he went somewhere to meet someone and got lost and called me to get directions to a place I have never been and don't know and then screamed at me and hung up on me and called me back and yelled at me because he told me three different places he was at and expected me to instantly find him on the map and give directions, and my phone died and he called the other phone and chastised me even more because I didn't answer when he hung up on me and then called back, then yelled at me again because I was trying to give him the directions he asked for and it was wrong because he wasn't at the place he said he was at, but somewhere else, and I don't know where that is and can't just instinctively find it on the map but actually have to look...and he has a mapping app on his phone that he could use but for some reason doesn't.

I am crying because I feel like I have nothing left to give, or at least nothing left that anyone wants.

I am crying because my life is inundated with the stench of shit, piss, rot, and filth.

I am crying because I am cold and don't dare turn up the heat, I am hungry but am weary of being the only one who cooks for the family and even if I have just fed the kids if I make anything for myself they want it and circle me like buzzards begging to share with me and I don't have it in me to deal with that right now.

I am crying because I feel awfully alone when it comes to dealing with these kids, unless there is criticism to be offered and then I have plenty of people, even strangers, happy to tell me how I am doing it wrong and ruining my beautiful children who love me despite my ineptitude, and how I should be raising them instead.

I am crying because in the beginning I thought he loved me, believed he loved me, and now I think he just resents me for what I cannot be or do and wishes he wasn't trapped in this festering life with me, could leave me behind and think of me only as that fat, nasty bitch who tried to ensnare him and didn't care and treated him so poorly and how lucky he is not to be stuck with HER any more.

I am crying because I want love but know, deep down, I don't deserve it and don't get to have it, but that doesn't stop me wanting it so much I ache constantly and sometimes try to believe I can have it but then find it's just an illusion and I don't deserve love, I deserve scorn and derision and abandonment and to be shown over and over that I am worthless, useless, not worth the effort.

I am crying because I am a curse, and anyone who is involved with me soon has cause to regret it because all I do is ruin lives.

I am crying because I have swept the floor three times this morning and it is messy again.

I am crying because I wonder if I will ever be able to just love and be loved without it turning to shit because it's me and that's what I am due...shit...

I am crying because even when I am away, I am responsible for what happens here, and there's no peace, no quiet, no rest at all and I worry about his drunkenness and anger and what is happening to the house, the animals, the children, worrying about the mess I will have to clean up when I get home despite having left a clean house before I left, because I am the only one who should be doing that sort of work, I am the woman and the mother and why should anyone else do it, and people are judging me and I am selfish and horrible for asking for a few days in a year, how dare I?

I am crying because there is no one here to see and feel burdened by it, because I don't get to cry or feel bad when there's a witness because that's an imposition and no one wants to suffer through that, it's too much to ask, really, and anyway I have no right to complain because I deserve this, I brought it on myself, and since everyone else is so much wiser and better than I am I should listen to them and live my life according to their advice and since I don't, I can just deal with it alone because I am too stupid to listen.

I am...crying...

It Must Be Nice

It must be nice to talk to someone on the phone and hear sweet words instead of anger and blame.

It must be nice to feel loved wanted instead of resented.

It must be nice to feel cherished.

It must be nice to be held.

It must be nice not to be yelled at all the time for things that aren't your fault.

It must be nice to know you can go somewhere without worrying about who is watching the kids, and how.

It must be nice not to have to struggle and beg and wrangle and plead to have a few precious minutes of peace.

It must be nice to be loved.

It must be nice.  I wouldn't know.

EnvyGrief

So.

A friend passed away a few months ago.  Her family held the memorial this past weekend.

For more than a month I have had to ask, cajole, remind, and worry about whether He would watch the kids so I could go.  He agreed to, but sometimes...a lot of times...he forgets things.  Alcohol and pot will do that to a body.  It worries and frustrates me, and I have to constantly take memory loss into account when making plans.

I went to the memorial, a trip that meant I was away from Friday night until Sunday afternoon.  I wanted to leave earlier on Friday, but it didn't work out.  The Boy's father picked him up on Friday, so He only had the girl to contend with.  I even arranged for a friend to come over and help out Friday night and Saturday morning.

At one point He was irritated because he had worked all week and now he wasn't getting to  have a weekend.  I bit my tongue.  When's the last time I had a weekend?  Hell, when's the last time I had an hour, or even fifteen minutes???

I went, came home.  He was somewhere else, but brought the Girl home.  Then he left again, went off to have some "quiet time" because he's had the Girl for all that time.

I don't get to have quiet time.

Then he was gone for hours - off playing at the lake with some friends, diving in the water, drinking, smoking pot, having a fine old time.

I didn't know where he was, and he did't let me know he'd be late.  I got dinner.  Got the Girl bathed, got both kids to bed, and wondered.

It isn't nice to feel lonely, superfluous, unwanted.  How on earth is one lonely when one has two kids, a man, four cats, and assorted other critters about?  I manage.

When He told me what he'd been up to, I thought it sounded nice.  And I was glad he'd had fun.  But...I had some unhappy thoughts, too.  Thoughts I couldn't voice because he would take them wrong, take them as a judgement, as offensive.

I wondered what would happen if I just...left...saying I was only going to be an hour but not coming home until midnight or after?  What would happen if I didn't call or text or let him know where I was or what I was doing, if I left him home with the two kids and went off and had my fun and never once thought about how he was?

I can't just take off for some peace or to hang out with friends.  I must bring the children with me or find someone to watch them, or else I have to ask and ask and be willing to endure the bitterness, the talk of inconvenience and how HE can't do what HE wants because I need an hour here and there, or because I would like to do something that cannot include the children.  I feel like I have to beg to simply run to the grocery store, and of course even that small thing is a big deal because it means he has to parent, and how dare I ask him to do that?  And when I DO manage to get a little time for me, it is broken up by phone calls, texts, questions about where's this or what's that or how the kids won't behave or he can't find something or something has gone wrong, angry voice, angry words, on and on.

The thing is...the Girl loves her father.  She adores spending time with him, is always excited when he comes home from work, delighted to have his attention and to share the world with him.  And he loves her.  He loves watching her play, loves playing with her...but only on his terms, when he feels like it...and if it gets in the way of anything else, he becomes bitter and angry.

I was thinking, last night, that it must be nice to be able to just take off without worrying if someone else is having to take up the slack or work around your absence.  I wonder what that's like...

Bitter Pill

"...the bitter pill I swallow is this love that's killing me..."

Last week, a person I do not know told me I was hot.  I asked him when he last had his eyes checked.

Last week, the same person told me that I need to believe I am worth loving.  I shrugged.

Last week, a different person told me I deserve better, I deserve a good partner who will treat me well, a partner who didn't constantly treat me with anger, derision, abuse.  I laughed and told her I don't get to have that.  I don't get to have kindness, compassion, and decency.  I get to have neglect, boredom, blame, anger, recrimination, and misery...or I can be alone.  The good ones?  Elsewhere interested, always.

I have this deep well of love that is constantly being drained but never refilled. I have this aching need for comfort and kindness that is never met, leaving me feeling alone and empty.  I would like to feel loved, accepted, cherished...but in reality all I feel is unacceptable and wrong.

I'd like just to be held close without feeling as if I am only being held so I will give a blowjob or have sex, and if I don't perform the sexual favors then I don't get to be held.

When even my words are useless because they cannot, will not, be heard, then I am useless...because my words are what define me, what make me, are my best and most powerful art and tool, and without them I am just a fat lump of flesh, a mass of excess protoplasm with nothing to offer except an example of what NOT to be.

Polyamorous.  What a laugh.  HE'S poly.  HE can take a partner whenever he wants, without so much as letting me know or giving me the tiniest bit of respect and asking me first...but I cannot even so much as speak to another man (even if I have no sexual interest and am just having a conversation) without there being rage...sometimes days of it...and accusations that I'm trying to replace him.  And when I point this out?  More rage and assertions that he is NOT jealous, that I should go find another man and fuck him and see how NOT jealous he is.

As if I could, or wanted to.

Worthy of love, me?  Hah!

It doesn't matter how much I say with my worthless words, doesn't matter what I do to show...he is convinced that I don't care and just want him gone, and the way he treats me and the kids and the cats and my friends the way he speaks and acts around everyone, as if we owe him something or are always secretly judging him or snickering at him...well...he's creating the very thing he has been accusing me of for years...not wanting to be around him.

God damn, but I'm tired of this morass of exhaustion and anger and accusation and hurt and blame and useless, pointless love...

The Woman Who Doesn't Care

This is how she thinks, the woman who doesn't care:
"There are only ten meatballs left.  Okay, well, if I only take two that will leave eight for him, which should be okay.  I don't really need them, any way."

And:
"Oh, how I would love some corn on the cob.  but he doesn't like corn on the cob.  I guess I'll cook green beans, instead."

And:
"I haven't roasted a chicken in a while, and I am craving it...but...he says he hates chicken...so...well...something else for dinner then.  Maybe I can make chicken when he's not here one night..."

And:
"I really want this book...haven't had a new one for years...but...if I buy this, then he will not have money for beer.  Oh, well...I can always try and find a book at the library if I can make it over there."

And:
"Oh, my shoes are worn so thin I can feel everything through the soles.  Thirty dollars for a new pair...whew...but then he won't have the new glass carboy he's been wanting...well, these shoes will last another year..."

And:
"I need clean clothes, but there's only a little bit of detergent left.  I guess I can wait...the kid need clean things and he needs to run a load of socks..."

And:
"I'd really like a little time for myself...but I am working this weekend and he'll have to watch the kids, so I can't ask him to watch them now because that wouldn't be fair, so I will just take them with me and give him a little respite before the weekend."

And:
"I'm so tired...and I got to bed later than him because there were all those dishes to do and I wanted to write a little and I can only do that when the kids are in bed, but he's asleep and the baby's up, so I'll get up with her and let him sleep a bit more, and maybe I can catch a nap with her later..."

But don't let what she thinks, says, or does fool you - he says she doesn't care so often, it must be true.

Dust

Every day, a little more chipped away
Little heaps of dust where I used to be
Waiting for the wind
To sweep them up
Worn down
And down
And down
I wonder how much remains
Simultaneously
I wonder how long before I am gone
Entirely
And know a little peace
Perhaps I will enjoy
Riding the wind