Ramblings of a mad woman

I had a conversation with a friend today, and afterwards he said that there is a part I should keep and discuss with my therapist. It was raw, torn from my heart and sounds sort of insane in a ranting / stream-of-consciousness way. But it said very clearly what I will (hopefully) discuss at my next therapy session (though probably the one that I have alone with the therapist.) I'm putting it here for discussion and maybe because it will help someone who reads it understand what his wife is going through sometimes and maybe it will help a wife understand that she isn't the only one to think this and maybe it will help me... to decide.

I went through my pregnancy and the first year and a half of my son’s life [trying to be really good. Trying to not let what we worked on in therapy the first time around go to waste.]
I tried so damn hard
I tried to be a good wife
A good daughter in law
A good mother
During that time I lost my mother in law
And I realized that there was no hope for me and my husband to have a normal relationship like we should
Maybe I ruined a part of that ability… but I know that I made an effort, a RENEWED effort, to be a good wife …
And I know that my husband went through a tough time when his mom died
I begged him for months on end to see someone for it
I begged him to talk about it
I begged him to do the things that would get him back to a normal life
But I don’t even know what the hell normal is any more
All I know is that I am tired
I feel like my marriage is a weight on my shoulders
I sit every day and imagine what it would be like to go home to an apt where I know I won’t get into a fight about something stupid
I sit and imagine what it would be like to go home and be greeted by someone who wants to talk about what happened in my day. Or just to talk in general about something besides what happened in his.
I want to be in a life with someone who wants to make the effort to show me that I am important.
That I deserve respect
I married too young
I realize now what I didn’t back then
That I want a husband who is more than just good in bed
I want a husband who cares about me, my health, my feelings
I want a husband who wants to be religiously conscious
I want a husband who wouldn’t dream of not saying kaddish for his mother
I want a husband who can lead davening and learn with my son
I want a husband who can plan a vacation without making it out to be a huge to do
And I want a husband who takes initiative
I don’t have that and I never will in my husband, bc you can’t change a person
My marriage teacher in college once said "when you find someone you like, see if the things that bug you about him are things that you can live with"
At the time I was engaged and physical with my husband
So I had rose colored glasses on
I knew all this stuff
I KNEW how he was
I just hoped he would change
But he never did and never will and I have to find a way to deal with that
Either by leaving or learning to accept it

Scars

I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut

My weakness is that I care too much

And my scars remind me that the past is real

I tear my heart open just to feel

Every few months I get this overwhelming feeling of almost suffocation. I guess for me it is more of a reality check that I have zero control over my life and that I cant really effect change.

Sunday is the first time my husband and I are going back to therapy since before I broke my leg. He has been back once, a couple weeks ago, but now that my sister is back in town, we can go together. I can already pretty much script how the session will go. Our therapist (after the usual greetings) will ask us how things have been going. My husband will immediately pipe up that I am back to my old self of being snappy and not being caring enough to him. I wont sit and take it, but it is so upsetting. I am just so tired of him.

How much is that kidney in the window?

I had my second level testing done today.

Wish I could say that that was the end of the testing, but I am not so foolish as to think that. It truly does get exhausting, more so mentally than anything else. The constant questions of “Why are you doing this?” “Why are you donating to someone who is not a relative?” “Are you being paid to do this?” (This one really pisses me off, because they don't know me from a hole in the wall and it insinuates that I am not a moral or ethical person at ALL!!!) “How well do you know the recipient?” just grate after a while.

From what I heard, Mt. Sinai (which is where I am going to do the donation assuming all goes well) is the hardest on donors. Wish I understood why. Here we have a relatively healthy person of sound mind and body wanting to give a part of herself, and it is like they are trying to convince me not to do it. Maybe I do understand why. In Judaism, when someone wants to convert to Orthodoxy (which, in the religious sects of Judaism is the ONLY way to really convert) the Rabbis do everything possible to try to dissuade the convert because once you convert, there is no going back. In my head, I am equating the two. THAT is WHY they are trying to make it difficult for me, but it is still hard.

I just hope that when they see that I am serious by the very fact that I will be making a follow-up call on Friday to see how the tests were (I have to call, because they don’t want me to feel any pressure.) that they will stop asking me all the above mentioned annoying questions and just get down to doing it.

So the deal is that I have to lose 10 pounds and I have to be healthy with all my other tests. If I am, I am going to do the donation, because I am a match. Today I had a chest x-ray, EKG, meeting with a social worker, blood test, urine test (on top of the 24-hour urine sample I had to collect all day yesterday) and a meeting with the nephrology department. In addition, because I have white coat anxiety (which means my blood pressure goes up in a doctor’s office), they have me doing a 24-hour blood pressure test. This involves wearing a blood pressure machine for 24 hours that tests my blood pressure every 20 minutes during the day and every 30 minutes at night.

I realized that this is not the most entertaining blog entry I have every written, but at least it is concise!

This testing is very taxing on any person, and it is something that is not really spoken about, even on donor sites. I know, because I checked. I really hope this works, but if it doesn’t, I plan on signing up with the HOD Society (see www.hods.org for more information.)

There is so much of me that I want to give to help the world, and this is only one way to do it. I wish I knew what drove me in this manner. What compels me to do things that I KNOW a sane person wouldn’t even contemplate. I don’t think I am a huge risk take, by nature. I just feel like my life has no meaning unless I am actively making a difference for other people at all times. I encourage all my readers to look around them and see the world for the good place it is. Sometimes I think we sit and complain and watch the world go by when really it is only a matter of standing up to make life, as we know it, so much more bearable. Bearable not only for ourselves, but even more so for those around us.

Hello, Bellevue? I'd like a room...

My husband is trying to set a new record. He is trying to find a way to piss me off every single day so that I stay in a perpetual state of bitchiness. I am really actually not sure he even realized he was doing it. I certainly didn’t point it out with the same eloquence which I used here. However, I don’t think that I have made it clear enough to him that it has to stop.

Because it hasn’t.

So what is the problem now, you ask? I have a leg on the mend, as you may know. This unfortunately means that I can’t take stairs like I used to, especially in the subway. Therefore, my husband has been chauffer and has been driving both me and my son in to work/daycare everyday. Daycare is next to my office, so that works out well for us. He then drives south the thirty or so blocks to his office, parks and goes to work. This works out well for him.

Here’s the problem.

I finish work at 5 PM and pick up my son from daycare shortly after. We hang out in the general vicinity of my office until my husband can pick us up. It has been nice because we have been going out for pizza, going to read books at Barnes & Noble, going shopping etc. My husband finishes work at 6:30 PM. IN THEORY. This is unfortunately not the reality, and I CAN appreciate that.

What I can NOT appreciate is that he has no consideration for his wife or child. He never calls to say he will be leaving his office late. So I stupidly assume I will be picked up no later than 7 PM (accounting for his having to get the car from the garage and then his driving back north the 30 blocks). It also means that I am wandering around instead of sitting because I think that he will be coming shortly and maybe if I get a few blocks further south to where he is, it will be faster for him to pick me up.

Well, the first few times when he didn’t leave his office until 7/7:15 PM, I was pissed but didn’t say anything. Then a few times I called HIM to find out when he would be leaving so I would have a general idea. Here is where I get really angry. He would tell me he is leaving soon (which I interpreted, reasonably I would say, as about 10 minutes). However, soon never meant anything close to 10 minutes. He would tell me he got on a phone call and “couldn’t get off of the phone.” Boloney Snot is all I have to say. If he lacks the very basic skills required to get off the gosh darn phone, then he is a real idiot. How hard it is it to say to a client “My crippled wife and toddler son are waiting for me to pick them up. I MUST GO.”? How hard is it to put a client on hold and just call me to tell me that he will be late?

Damn even now I am getting pissed just TYPING this. Every time it is the same story. Anyway, here are two most recent examples:

Monday:

6:30 PM – He calls me and tells me he is leaving shortly and asks where I am so he knows where to pick me up. I tell him I am sitting with our son having a snack.
6:45 PM – I call him to tell him I decided to start walking south a bit so he should call me when he gets in the car and I will tell him where I am. He tells me he is working on a letter and will be leaving soon.
7:10 PM – He calls me to tell me he is in the car and to find out where I am.
7:25 PM – He picks me up. I asked him what took so long and he said he told me when he called that he was writing a letter. I said “No, you told me about that when I called YOU. When you called ME you said you were leaving shortly. This is not shortly.”
8:05 PM – We arrive back at our apartment.

Tuesday:

6:28 PM – He calls to tell me he is leaving. I tell him ok and that I am heading to Barnes & Noble to try to avoid being stuck outside if it rains.
7:07 PM – He calls to ask me where Barnes & Noble is because he forgot from when I told him at 6:28 PM.
7: 15 PM – He calls to tell me he is outside and sounds all irritated when I tell him I am on line waiting to pay. He asks me how much longer I think I will be and I say “I am on line. I will be as long as it takes to get to a cashier and pay. I don’t know how long that takes.”

What am I doing wrong? I keep telling myself I will find a different way to get home. My coworker offered to take me home but it is not comfortable to sit in his car AND I don’t like to take advantage. My sister is flying back tomorrow and I hope against hope that I can find a way to get her to help me. I don’t know how, but something has to change because this situation is driving me crazy.

Guilt me baby one more time

My potential kidney recipient is going on dialysis VERY soon. Today he went to find out all the ins and outs of what is done during the dialysis, a training of sorts if you will. I feel so awful for having postponed the level two testing but I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk to the various buildings with my broken ankle/leg. But still I feel guilty. Let’s review what I DON’T feel guilty about, shall we?

My youngest sister went home to my parents Memorial Day weekend after completing her second year of college. Shortly after (and I am talking a matter of a couple days) she called me to tell me how she was going nuts and that the next time she came back would be when she was engaged. Incidentally, my other sister who is one year my junior was there that weekend as well with her fiancée for an engagement party. I’m thinking that is where my youngest sister got that as her point of return condition. Now, I knew that her ticket wasn’t returning her back to the big apple for another 4 weeks, so I suggested to her that she find out how much it would cost to change her flight. She called me two days later to tell me she will be coming back to NYC this Thursday.

I am personally thrilled.

HOWEVER, she didn’t discuss this with my parents. She sorta kinda just booked it. I suppose that that is a true symptom of living on your own for a whole college school year in a big city like NYC. Needless to say, my parents were not thrilled. I am even thinking that that could officially be crowned the newest biggest understatement of the year. Perhaps the century, but the votes are still being counted.

As is his nature, my father did not hold his anger long and we are back on speaking terms. My mother, on the other hand, (who happens to be in NYC for training for her new job since Sunday and is leaving tomorrow), is still angry. Pissed, peeved, ticked off. The poop hit her ceiling fan and is still circulating. She didn’t call me when she landed, or when she checked in, or anytime since.

Today I figured that I would see if I could bring my son to see her after work, so I called and called her cell phone but she didn’t pick up. Typical small-town (read: anywhere other than NYC) person that she is, she left her cell in the hotel while she was at her training seminar. My father called her and told her that I was looking for her and she in turn called me…at 7 PM. I told her it was too late, that what I ‘needed’ her for was already past and that she should have a good night. It takes two to grudge-o.

Now, in reality, I SHOULD feel guilty about my role in the whole younger-sister-flying-to-NYC-early fiasco and SHOULD NOT feel guilty about the fact that I broke my leg and had to postpone second level testing for my kidney donation until this coming Monday (yes, wishes of Good Luck are appropriate and appreciated). However, I think that being raised on the nectar of Jewish guilt for so long, my wires have gotten crossed and so I am feeling guilt in the wrong places and a complete lack of guilt in the wrong places as well.

C'est la vie!