thunderstorms

last night there was a terrible thunderstorm. it lasted bascially all through the night, and into this morning.
it's actually still raining, with occasional lightning.
i think it's a remnant of tropical storm bonnie or something like that.

macy is terrified of thunderstorms.
it really annoys me.
can i say that?
it really does.
i feel guilty about that.
i feel like i should be more compassionate towards her when she's scared of them, but i'm not.
i get annoyed.
she covers her ears, and hides.

it annoys me because she wants to sleep with us.
i think this is ridiculous.
she will be 9 years old in two weeks, and i personally think this is too old to be sleeping with us.

the reasons i think this is too old to be sleeping with us are the following:
a) she goes to sleep away camp for a week every summer where there are thunderstorms, and she doesn't sleep with us then.
b) she wants to have sleep overs with her friends where there could potentially be thunderstorms and she couldn't sleep with us then.
c) i think it's part of the ongoing unhealthy relationship she and the boyfriend have where she acts like a baby and he allows her to and it freaking annoys me! it's like this part of their relationship where it feeds into each other, it's like they both need it in this really unhealthy way, and i can't stand it. maybe because i'm not a parent, maybe because i'm not part of it and it makes me jealous...i dunno.

anyway, my parents are in town this weekend staying with my sister and all six of us had a nice evening together. afterward the boyfriend, macy and i came back home. macy went to bed. the thunderstorm started, and so did the big ball of dread in my stomach. the boyfriend and i were watching a movie on tv when sure enough, here comes macy downstairs, with her ears plugged and jumps on top of my stomach, whining. i kept praying for it to pass, or for her to go back to sleep enough for him to carry her upstairs. but to no avail.

the whining starts, "daddy, can you please get me a drink of water so i don't have to take my fingers out of my ears?" "no macy, you can get it yourself, we're sitting right here, you go and get it." "but I don't want to!" "macy, that's enough." back to eyes closed. five minutes later..."daddy, can you PLEASE go get me a drink of water so i don't have to take my fingers out of my ears?" "no macy, i already told you no, you can get it yourself, we're sitting right here, you go and get it." "but DADDY!" small break... "DADDY!" "Ok macy." i shot him a glance that could have killed a small animal, and headed upstairs to get ready for bed. i absolutely hate it when he tells her no and then she whines repeatedly and he gives in. i mean, seriously, talk about reinforcing negative behavior, all that teaches her is that if she whines enough and repeatedly she can get whatever she wants.

so i'm upstairs brushing my teeth,and macy is standing in the hall with her water, and she asks where her dad is, and i say "downstairs, would you like me to tuck you back in?" and she says very matter of factly, "oh, i'm not going back to my bed, i'm sleeping in your room now, that's what always happens when it storms."

i was not happy about this. i knew it could be a possibility, but the boyfriend didn't discuss it with me. he didn't ask, can macy come in - would that be alright with you? would you mind? i think that's appropriate. the bed isn't really big enough for the three of us to sleep comfortably, it never works. macy spends the whole night waking me up to readjust herself or me, to get more pillows, more covers, ask me to quit snoring, etc, and frankly, she belongs in her own bed. period. i don't mean to be uncompassionate, but macy isn't a small child, she is an almost 9 year old girl, and a thunderstorm isn't an emergency. she's going to need to learn to sleep on her own.
she's not a baby.

i replied, "i don't know anything about this." i heard her go to her dad and say, "daddy, can i sleep with you." he said simply, "yes."

that was it, i grabbed my pajamas and headed for the basement. macy said, "where are you goin?" i said, "downstairs, i can't sleep with three of us in the bed." and i kissed her on the head and said good night. the boyfriend was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and i said "good night." he said, "where are you going?" and i said "downstairs." he said, "why?" i said "i can't sleep like that."

this morning i woke up at 6:15 to use the restroom and put my foot on the floor into a puddle of water. a flood, and it's still raining. i went to wake him and we've been working on getting the two inches of water out of the basement ever since.

macy came down and announced, "i slept great. daddy, your bed is way more comfortable than mine. i'd like to keep sleeping in there."

honestly, i feel like going home to my own apartment tonight.

i'm tired.

while we were working on the water, i said to the boyfriend, "honey, i need to talk to you about something - can you multi-task, or would another time be better?" he said another time would probably be better.

it's hard. i just feel like we parent completely differently. i'm a boundary setter. he gives in. it causes me to feel like i'm uncompassionate, and like he spoils her. it also causes tension between her and i because i feel like it is perpetually pitting us against one another. it shouldn't be that she's getting my place in the bed, that is simply wrong. i shouldn't have to share the bed with my boyfriend's daughter at the age of 9. i think that's weird.

maybe this isn't the relationship for me afterall. i simply don't know.

married?

so. the other night as we're going to bed the boyfriend asks if he can talk to me.
he tells me that he wants to get married to me right now.
yay.
this is what i've been waiting for, for my whole life.
to be married to the man i love, and i do love him.

i should be thrilled, right?
ecstatic, right?
we laid there, talking about whether or not he'd ask my dad, what kind of a wedding we'd want, silver or gold bands, who would balance the checkbook, etc...

but then it got complicated.
super complicated.

he can't get married right now. for several reasons.
i don't know how much i should divulge on this blog. i don't even know if i have any readers anyway. i was just reading an op-ed in the new york times over the weekend about an art piece at new york university called "growing" that a father did on his minor daughters thirty years ago. he filmed their growing breasts and genitals, asking them how they felt. now the piece has been purchased by nyu, and the women, currently in their 40's would like it destroyed. the writer spoke to the issue of creating art/writing about your family members and whether or not it's kosher. if you don't do it because somebody doesn't like it, then it's considered censorship. i don' t know if the boyfriend would appreciate me writing about his personal business - but here goes.

let's suffice it to say that part of the complexity has to do with his desire for his sole income to be his artistry, and he's not in a place to fully support himself, me and macy with that yet, so there is a waiting period (read: he'll need to find a different job in this economy). how long, nobody knows.

this wasn't an engagement, this was a getting it all out on the table talk.

the other aspect of this talk was to let me know how scared he is that i'll get pregnant in the meantime. his income is currently funded by social security as funded by his widow which permits him to work on his artistry, and if something were to happen and i were to become pregnant, he couldn't immediately fix it. couldn't run to the courthouse and marry me. we had a scare last month where my clockwork menses was 9 days late, and all of this fell on his shoulders - the reality of his financial situation, the desire to be married to me now, the urgency he felt to get his life in order since his artistry isn't taking off the way he felt that it should.

he wants to be in a place where he knows that he can support me, where he is making good decisions for all of us.

all of this is well and good, headed in the right direction. except that i'm ready now.

his solution to not getting pregnant is to stop having sex. this he feels is the only way to prevent the problem of an unwanted pregnancy before we are able to get married. he just told me this the other night, out of the blue, that he thinks we shouldn't be having sex anymore because he's worried something will happen and he can't fix it.

i mean, this was a lot of information at once: he wants to marry me, his income stops immediately when he gets married again and he thinks we should stop having sex.

needless to say, i wasn't sure how to feel: elated, shocked, awed, angry, disappointed, fearful. i felt it all. mostly, this wasn't how i expected to feel when the man i love said he wants to marry me. i settled on overwhelmed and began to cry.

thursday, friday, saturday, sunday, and monday - they've all been tension filled days. these are the days we should be happy. we were so happy wednesday night to finally stop skirting around the issue and speak out loud that we want to spend the rest of our lives together, but rather than celebrating, we've been fighting and full of tension.

i'm sad and angry. he's not ready. he decided about not having sex without consulting me. i keep trying to explain to him that if i had decided that without consulting him, i doubt he'd be so understanding. that if i suddenly, one day just came to him and said that i didn't think we should have sex anymore until we got married, and i had no idea when that would be, that it could be years, i thought he'd probably have an issue with it. he feels defensive and that i'm being disrespectful of his decision because i've brought it up every day since. i have. we have friends that are married who stopped having sex. they've only been married for three years, and they haven't had sex in a year. i don't want that to happen to us. ever.

it starts with fear about something, and before you know it, it escalates into something else.

this morning i told him that i felt like my relationship was being ruled by his fears - my sex life by his fear of me getting pregnant and my marriage timeline by his fear of letting go of his social security check and that i didn't like it one bit. that i felt stuck, and ruled by his fears, and that i didn't think that was a healthy way to live.

needless to say, that didn't go over so well.

i feel like a real heel right now.

perhaps my fears are ruling the relationship as well. my fear that he won't pull through, that's a big one. my fear that this will be the end and we'll lose what we used to have. my fear that finding somebody who wants to marry me will be as close to marriage as i'll ever get. my fear of losing macy.

i dunno know anymore. i simply want to go to sleep.