Family Reunion

i started this blog to help. myself. others. everyone. though i have no followers. i don't think anybody reads it. perhaps it's really more like an on-line journal. i think i had one reader, once.

i am 41 years old, and single. i'm dating a widower with a daughter. i had no children in my life at all for the longest time other than the offspring of friends.

then, i was laid off, as i've mentioned, and out of desperation for money to live, started babysitting. babysitting became something i was really good at, something i really enjoyed though i hadn't done it since high school, and i started doing it all of the time. i started a business out of it, and started helping other unemployed people i know keep themselves afloat during this weird recession period. it can be pretty lucrative as well. i don't do it simply because it's lucrative, but that's just a fact, it is. if you can get a couple of families to share their time with you, it benefits everyone - you make more money per hour, they pay less per hour, and everyone wins. (unless they expect you to do the dishes...see previous post).

so i went from no children, to working with children and dating with children. and sometimes, it's hard. i don't remember who i am without children. only none of them are mine.

i was at a party last weekend, and there were children there, a lot of them children i'm often paid to be responsible for - only this time all parents were present, and i didn't know who i was without having to say "oh, don't touch that, oh, you need to ask for more, oh, be careful with that!" seriously, i was slightly at a loss.

i'm in this weird transition time, caught in between being single and being with family, and i'm neither. does that make sense? i basically live with the boyfriend and macy, but yet i have my own apartment too. i want to live with them, i love them. i feel like they are my family.

this weekend they are away at a family reunion for macy's mom's side of the family, and i'm back at my place. i'm happy they are doing what they need to do. i have things i need to do for me, but subconsciously, it's a struggle. i miss them. i missed macy waking me up early this morning. i miss hearing her wretched cartoons blasting incessantly from the tv and telling her to turn it off. i miss sitting with the boyfriend and reading the New York Times, and the way he smells when he comes back from running, all sweaty and manly.

i know, it's only one weekend.

i think it's amplified by the fact that i have to be on an antibiotic right now, and my body is reacting funny to it. it's making me all tired and weepy. i've had 128 ounces of cranberry juice in the past 24 hours, and it hurts when i pee (i think you know why i'm on the anti-biotic), and i'm just tired.

it's hot in my apartment and my airconditioning units aren't in. the boyfriend said i should stay at his house when he's gone, but i really do need to get stuff done at my place.

last night i went to see "the killers" with a girlfriend. it was better than i expected it to be. the posters for that film make it look completely lame, but it had some interesting twists, and was funnier than i expected.

i came home and caught up on back episodes of "the city" on mtv.com. kelly coutrone really does give good advice. she is like a fairy godmother.

i think what's really bothering me down deep inside, is the dreams i kept having last night, combined with the telephone conversation with the boyfriend before i went to bed. he called after the movie. it was sweet. he was telling me about being there, and about what i guess is his sister-in-law's family business she has. it sounds really cool. she and her husband and their two sons restore old cars. (when your wife passes, is her sister still your sister in law? i think so, he isn't sure what to call her because they've never been close.) anyway, they have this business where they restore old cars, which does sound particularly cool - especially for high school boys. they don't even drive yet, but can take apart, clean, restore, and put back together these cars. awesome. they are set as far as boys go, and having a skill like that will more than likely keep them out of trouble.

he was telling me all about it and sounded excited. he asked me about my night and what i was doing tomorrow and as i was telling him he interrupted me and said, "listen, i'm gonna get going, i'm fading fast, i'm tired." i hate it when he does that. it's so selfish. i said, "oh, am i boring you?" and he said, "no, i'm just getting tired." yeah, you're always tired lately.

i mean, he is. it's so annoying. i don't get it. he's ALWAYS tired. i know he has an 8 year old, but i basically live with them, and she doesn't make me that tired.

i can't tell if he's trying to escape, or if he is really tired, or if he's depressed, or if it's just his chemical make-up, or what's going on. i don't think it's normal to be that tired. he's a writer, so it's not like he's going to an office and putting in long grueling hours there, he pretty much sets his own hours.

sometimes i feel like he's half dead. i feel like telling him this.

i just don't know.

anyway.

i just said, "ok, good-bye." and we hung up.

when i went to bed last night, i had a dream that i was at the family reunion with them, and that his wife came back from the dead. and i didn't know what to do with myself. i was looking to the boyfriend for answers, and he just disappeared. i was waiting to see who he would choose, like in that movie with tom hanks where he is the fed ex worker and he is on that island forever with wilson and he comes back to helen hunt and she thought he was dead and has remarried and so they talk to each other but she has moved on, i thought about that movie in my dream, i thought - will he remember that he's now in a relationship with me? in the dream i was sitting at the breakfast table with his wife and her sisters, and she was having to learn how to talk again, and she couldn't remember certain words. i had made eggs but she couldn't remember the word for eggs, she turned to me and said, "you...whatever your name is, you are the one who came here with my husband, what are these called?" and i said, "they are called eggs, and my name is lucy, and he's not your husband anymore."

the thing is, the boyfriend would be so upset if he knew i was feeling this way. he loves me. i just get insecure sometimes. it's silly really.

it's especially silly to feel so threatened by a deceased wife, right? right. silly, but normal. i'd guess. is it? i don't know.

i'll tell ya, things come up, that i never expected to come up. by things, i mean feelings.

normally, i just talk to him about these things, but it's hard right now. especially surrounding this topic. but i think i have to. i want to be perfectly honest with him, and i want him to be perfectly honest with me, and i think the only way to do that is to be, well, perfectly honest, even about the ugly things in my life.

last week was a hard week. we didn't have sex at all tuesday, wednesday or thursday, and that seems like a lot to me. it's allergy season, and allergy season means allergy pills and allergy pills mean a low flying sail.

i think it's more than that though. i know because i looked up his deceased wife's obituary that it's the anniversary of her death next week, and i think maybe that has something to do with it.

i dunno.

this stuff is complex, and we're facing all of it for the first time. we'll do it. we faced their wedding anniversary head on, and i know we can face the other stuff head on. once i get him to talk, it's always fine, it's just the getting him to talk that can be a little tricky, because he never thinks he needs to.

oh, men.

oh, emotions.

oh, my incredible need to discuss everything.

i have a friend who is a grief counselor in boston. she sent me a great booklet, that i just happened to get in the mail yesterday. perfect timing. it has all kinds of wonderful information in it. one of the examples is about how women and men deal with things differently. there was a couple who's best man at their wedding committed suicide. the woman needed to talk about it, the man didn't. he would go running, and decided to train for a marathon. the more he ran, the more tired he would be, and the more tired he was, the more able he was to sleep - which was what he needed. when he was running, she missed him, which made her need to talk even greater. finally, she realized that he was running as a way to deal with his grief, and she joined a support group to talk, and cheered him on at the marathon.

hmmm.

duh, lucy, duh.