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Honey is Sweet

Hol HaMo'ed Sukkot - 2008-10-18

I'm grateful for: surviving the holidays in good order; good weather; clean floors.

Good shabbos, chag sameach! I've been trying to keep up with things, but the holidays have added so much that there is simply nothing to do but wait for them to be over. And probably after S3's birthday sleepover as well. If I'm still alive at the end of next week I hope to give myself over to an orgy of doing nothing for a while. If that happens, I'll have loads of time to visit with people online. I doubt visiting with people in real life is going to happen, and I don't want it to.

I have become even more reclusive. I have no way of knowing if this is a bad thing or a good thing or just a thing. I just don't want to talk with anyone. Two people phoned me in the last week, a complete surprize, and I didn't chat with either of them. D1 and D2 have called several times, and I take their calls as often as not. They are important. D2 is enjoying her first weekend visit with her boyfriend's family. I hope she is enjoying, anyway. D1 is going through still more ups and downs on her way to some destination that she can't see or imagine, dragging her heels all the way. I wish I had the words to explain to her about letting go, but, there it is.

S1 has been a great help. Sometimes he more than annoys the heck out of me, but I guess that is to be expected. He tells me every day that I am beautiful, and loved, and lovable, very seriously, with the goal of making sure I believe it and like myself. Sweet, funny, and very earnest. Hashem should help him figure out his life already, I know he wasn't born solely to be a support for me.

S2 is growing into a responsible adult and it warms my heart utterly. He's good at getting things done, he's good at saying 'no' when he needs a break. He has taken over much of the driving, taking me shopping and so on. We went on an 'outing' Thursday, driving up to Petakh Tikvah to do the shopping rather than doing the round of the usual stores. What the heck, the gas is paid for. It was a bit of a failure in terms of getting the actual shopping done, we came home without everything on the list after stopping at two different supermarkets, but it was a lot of fun and something different. He's reading aloud to me a three volume work by Neal Stephenson, too many pages, seriously, but it's a lot of fun. We both can't wait for it to be over, while at the same time will be sorry, as it is such a huge part of our lives right now.

D3 is also becoming extremely responsible, taking care of housework, milking the goats. This brings her into conflict with TH more often, but she's working out ways of dealing with that. She's come up with several campaigns to keep him out of the kitchen, and it seems as if it is mostly working. Our goal, if we can be said to have one, is to take back the house, so that he does his work for money (gainful employment), and does household repairs, fence-building and so on, and otherwise stays the heck out of things. D3 is wholeheartedly for this, and is forging ahead on her schoolwork and making a bit of money as well.

S3 is really taking off. Having turned nine, he is beginning to show the beginnings of maturing that I've seen in my other kids at a slightly earlier age, but I imagine that he is still a bit behind from the several-years-trauma that was getting to Israel. It's good to see him starting to put things together, mentally, that he couldn't do just a little while ago. His reading is really starting to take off as well.

And TH, well, I can't begin to guess what goes on in his head, and it is a relief in a way to stop trying. I avoid him and avoid talking to him as much as possible. We went to an airshow Thursday (it was a busy day), TH and I and three of the kids, and it was - interesting. I had a good time because there was an entertainer there for the children, and I could follow some of his Hebrew, which made me feel good and happy, and I even learned something. The kids had fun for different reasons doing different things. I tried to avoid talking to him, and it worked, but it wasn't a happy situation. What the hell, who expect happy right now?

One side-effect, if I can call it that, of not having anything to do with TH, is that I get to spend a lot more time seeing how I react to him, and how he came to take up such a huge amount of my life. He's like a black hole, he sucks you in, and gives absolutely nothing back. But he's so good natured and friendly about it you can hardly believe that is what is happening, so you (I) keep trying to make a connection, to turn it into a two-way thing. Any time I try to change the nature of the relationship - I give and he takes - he becomes insulting, hostile, belittling, mean. He's operating from a two-year-old place, or maybe even a younger one. I don't know and I don't have to know. I do know that his behaviour is abusive, just as I know that I would have a bloody hard time convincing anyone outside the family system that he is, in fact, abusive.

I don't mean you people here.

I'm starting to believe, or at least keep an open mind to, the idea that he has multiple personalities. I know, I've spent most of my life dealing with multiples, how could I only just be seeing the possibility? Blindness, denial, stupidity? Maybe he's not a multiple, but if not he is a better actor and a liar than I think is really possible. If he is, though, he's better at it than most. The give-aways are things like his complete lack of memory, except when he has one, and he does have drastic personality changes, only they aren't visible on the surface. He can be earnest and caring one minute and hit me the next, and not see any contradiction in his behaviour (so he says). He remembers things that never happened, and things that happened years ago like they were yesterday, but can't remember what he said five minutes before.

In any event, multiple or not, he doesn't like me, not really, not mostly. If there is a bit of him that likes or even loves me it is certainly not dominant. So, where does that leave me, and the kids? We are trying to build a life, as I said, largely without his participation. Most American males I know would be thrilled at the prospect, honestly. To be left alone by their wives to just go to work and putter around the house. Heaven! Maybe that is not standard, but as I said, it is among the ones I've known well. Now that I have older teens who can take over the things I can't do, TH can stop trying to run everything here. Maybe? It's something I can hope for.

There's not much to say about me. I don't like complaining and that leaves me sort of without. I'm lonely, but not for the people that I have in my life. I want a friend, companion, comforter, mentor, parent, something. Someone wrote a while back about wanting a mother, and I do. Just, I've got one and she ain't it. She sent me an email dismissing my existence this week, yet again. I've gotten to the point that I can literally file and forget it, but this is not a person on whose shoulders I can put my head to cry. I just have so much grieving to do. I don't have the sorts of friends I can grieve around. I have to be chatty and fun, or making plans, or have something new to tell them about.

My marriage isn't dissolving (as far as I can tell). It is re-forming around a more realistic premise. I truly hope we can arrive at a working relationship that can carry us through, after we get the bumps worked out.

I haven't finished that blanket, but I have made progress. The holidays have slowed it down, but I should be finished with knitting the actual blanket in a couple of days, even allowing for all kinds of delays. Then there is sewing it together, which will be a huge pain. Any suggestions among the crafty out there? It's a mohair blanket, and I haven't got a sewing machine, or a yarn in a matching colour. I've got 'invisible' nylon thread, but I'm a bit reluctant to use that with mohair. I've thought about crocheting the panels together, but I've never done that before, so I'm a little worried about how it would turn out. I can do plain cotton thread and a needle, and will if I can't come up with anything better, but I am not so thrilled with my sewing skills (M.S., not general ability), so another option would be preferable.

I watched a bit of the Johnny Depp version of Sweeney Todd, enough to convince me that I really don't want to watch the whole thing. I did want to see/hear Johnny Depp sing, though. He is so amazing.

I've been listening to a lot of popular music from the '50's. It's great fun, recognizing the ones I know so well, and finding new ones that I'd missed over the years. I love jazz and it is heavily weighted toward jazz, at least the collection I am going through. It's a lot of music, more than two thousand songs, with so far only a few duplicates. When I've had enough, which does happen, I listen to some trance music, or Tim Minchin (thanks, Anna!) or something else completely different. Last night for some reason it was a lot of movie soundtracks, Chicago, Hair, RHPS, A Little Night Music, Fiddler on the Roof, The Barber of Seville - oops! How did that creep in there? It's okay, I love opera, too.

I 'should' get up, go to the sherutim (toilet), and go out to the sukkah to eat something. I don't want to move, only partially motivated by the fact that once I leave my room I may run into TH. I also have just plain done too much and I need to rest both body and mind. I'm still a cripple, you know? So hard for other people to bear that in mind, so hard for me to forget. I need some horrible disfigurement or an amputation so people can SEE that I am a cripple. Or maybe I just need to get TH and his horrid judgments and put-downs out of my head... I'm not good enough for him, well, f**k that noise. He's the problem here, and I need to let him be his own problem, and not mine. It's not easy.

I've got to go. The kids might be getting more self-sufficient, but the number of animals that aren't is growing. Anyone want a dog? Or three?

I'm listening to my thoughts, and the fan, in that order.

0 bleats so far

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06