Our flip-floppy morning.
Good morning. This is me again except now it is REALLY Saturday morning!WooHOO!!! We’ve been up for a couple of hours loitering around the Internet. Rich is also up now. We’ve taken our medicine so we’re pretty well-balanced and we’re appreciating that Sweetie is happily watching his fishy shows. He gets SOOOO captivated!
We’ve been looking in and out of a site we found last night. I know we do this periodically, but sometimes we go out looking for multiples. We found some over at a place called psychcentral.com.
There are some good and bad things about this site. Some of the good is that it seems really populated by quite a few people in all areas of mental illness and recovery. It’s put out by a doctor. So, some of the bad is that it has advertisements for medicines and such. That’s really a turn-off.
We had to post 6 posts on their message boards before we could get higher access, but we did all that last night and now this morning we are in official. We posted once to an “introduce-you” message board, and then we did quite a few over at the board for dissociative disorders and then we went over to a board on psychotherapy and posted one there too. I don’t think our posts were profound, but we had fun doing them. It’s always a little scary introducing yourself to a new community, because you don’t know what kind of responses you will get, or how on target your posts are in supporting others or conveying your needs. We’ll see. Have to step away from it now, because this is something we want to take lightly and not obsess in it too much, because it takes time away from other things like writing here that we really already get so much out of.
Whoops a little snuggly with our bunny. Just a few moments though because it’s now 8 o’clock and he’s pretty intent about getting some clothes in the laundry downstairs. We say go for it Tiger, but let me smooch you a few more minutes.
Well, we got in a little loving, but *Sigh* never enough.
We’re a little gitzy because we haven’t gone into things enough to calm down and be writing steadily. It’s a beautiful snowy Saturday morning so I don’t want to get too far into the work day yesterday. We did get a little more work done on the Qnotes and we went to both the Administration meeting and the Staff meeting. That was a good enough deal, but there’s nothing so inspiring that I want to talk about it. The day didn’t seem too long, because we got into work late. Eh, sometimes it happens. One of the problems was that we’d gone in late, but then we got stuck behind a train that went on for about 20 minutes. At times it had actually stopped and we felt pretty much trapped in.
The good part is that we have our trusty iPod, so we get plenty to be thinking about as we are driving or sitting in traffic. I can’t say enough about that purchase.
Oh yeah that was something too. We discovered a new really good podcast … it’s called “The Tech Guy.” I really enjoyed him and we did some researching into his all set-up after we got home from work yesterday. It’s going to be a really good show, though it’s a little long. He goes on for a couple of hours. We found his on-line site and did some appreciating there too. There’s always something new to be thinking about.
Hmm, Sweetie just did his quarter-run. And, between us we did it. We came up with the 24 quarters he needed to be doing the 3 loads of clothes in front of us. He does most of the work though; we’re just an extra help-folderer. WooHOO! More clean socks!
Hmm, oh I know something I wanted to mention about yesterday. We got a chance to talk to Karla toward the end of the day. We had just the best conversation. I won’t be able to recall all of where the conversation went, but we talked a little about some of her past – in relationship to family. I felt a lot of empathy toward her and I really hope that this relationship can be better developed. I think we both feel close to each other.
Part of that is that like Margarita, Holly, and I think Stephanie – we are all 49 going to turn 50 this year. I think something special has to be done about that. I talked to Margarita and she seemed game. We don’t need to do the whole center although everyone will be invited. Basically, it means that we’ve all progressed through general stages of our life, like we’re not interested in the gossip and poor feelings that Sr. referred to yesterday in the meetings.
There was something else a little worrisome too in the conversation. Karla asked at one point if Rich and us were an item. I told her we were best friends without going into it more specifically, but when she asked if he wasn’t married, we told her after a few moments of thought that she couldn’t say anything, because not even Sr. knew, but that Rich was getting a divorce. We didn’t say anything more, but I’m guessing that Karla is being pretty perceptive.
Rich and us try not to mingle too much when everyone is there, but being back there in our area and the few times Rich has come up in the discussion, I think if you were being real astute and used to how relationships work, then you might be able to pick it up. I worry a little bit in that I don’t know if this wasn’t gossip she might have picked up from other staff. But, I think more so that what she’s picking up is because she’s been in a long-term relationship too.
Maybe too part of it is because when she talks about relationships, she knows that we can carry an equal conversation and that might not have happened if we hadn’t been in a relationship where we were figuring out the same kind of stuff as her.
I told Rich yesterday that she had asked the “Are you an item” question. He didn’t say too much, but I’m thinking he gave us the general cautions. I think this is something we both worry about and there’s not too much else that can be said or done about it. We’ve come way too far in the relationship to be backing out now. There was something cute though in that Karla said even without knowledge of the truth in our relationship to Rich that we made such a good couple and that we look good together. She must be pretty smart! Hehehe.
More of this to come later, I’m sure. I would like to trust her like we have Margarita, but the more people who know the more chances of discovery. I think that by the time it gets out official, that Rich might be officially divorced. The relationship we worry about the most of course is Sister’s. We think she’s level-headed enough that she’d probably say something like she’d suspected it all along, but there would be an element of privacy lost, that I’m not ready to deal with this morning. *Sigh*
One thing is for sure, I feel closer to Karla than I have any other staff other than Rich and Margarita. I know Margarita over time, but I have to admit there are more options in our relationship with Karla in that she’s probably more up-to-date in life than Margarita. Most of that comes from being more in-tune with herself than Margarita. I don’t think it’s within Margarita’s culture to be so self-attuned.
It’s more prevalent that she’s in-tune with her family and especially in taking care of the household and her girls. Don’t make any mistake there though in that Margarita is pretty smart. Just that Karla … well like one of the things I like is that she’s in a relationship she respects. Margarita complains about her male relationship, so I don’t have the same feeling she’s taking care of her life as best it could happen.
So, that is pretty much of yesterday. There was one other part in that Rich got home pretty late last night. It was about 10 pm when I became aware of the time. I think he’d been home for a little bit, but not much. I was really into the computer and he’d been home much later than he’d thought and I knew there would be a transition period. One of the things that bothers us is that he sometimes expects that when he comes in that we drop everything, or if we don’t, we must be having a problem with him.
After we’d figured out the time we thought better get our medicine. And, then we got a fudgsicle and laid down on the chair. He came to our attention – mostly I think because his current fishy show was over and he was trying to say that it was just me that been neglectful. We were slightly into our argumentative, though must not have been too good, because we don’t remember it. There was one line that we gave him when we first sat down. Part of it was in jest to be funny and the other was a little feeling sorry for ourselves.
When he’d pulled over to our attention, we held up our hand and cut off his conversation. We told him that “No, no … we can’t talk to you now because we’re tired and just want to relax.” It was basically a take on something earlier in the week where he’d come home from his mothers’ and declared he was too tired to talk.
Well, if you know us by now you know that the standoffishness never lasts too long.
We watched a fishy show with him – this one caught our attention because it had a father who had his two sons about 8 & 10 years old and they were all very natural and beautiful together. The father – the pro fisherman – had set up a contest between him and the two boys who were fishing together - as it turned out the boys won by 2 ounces. It was a great TV moment. The family was so positive and supportive it was just a joy to watch.
So, basically, well somehow or another we decided that we wanted to watch a little more TV snuggled to our bunny, so we laid with our head on his lap and got nicely rubbed! I think we fell asleep and the next things I know we were snuggling up next to him in bed. I just love that when it happens. I feel so special. He’s just a big Love-bunny!
Well, I think that pretty much covers yesterday. We’re about ready to move on. There is one thing though. I had to bring home a folder of the client who is being staffed on Monday. I didn’t have the wherewithal to do it at work in between the meetings. After the second meeting we’d been talking to Karla and then when she left … the last 1 ½ hours or so we’re just too much a lazy feeling to get anything serious done. I can’t believe too much work gets done around the world the last hour or so on a Friday directly before the weekend.
I don’t think we’re into anything real serious yet. I have to think through to what we hope to be accomplishing. I think Rich said he’d be around this weekend, but I know that he usually gets restless like last night. He had planned to be home, but when Bob and his other friend called and asked him to go to one of the fishy shows, he was pretty much tail tucked under and right out the door. We giggled as he made a pretense to ask our permission to go. I’m pretty sure that he told Bob yes, but might have canceled it if we were really going to give him a hard time. He does things sometimes to us that endear us to him. Part of that is a sense of him being a little boy. Sometimes he just wants to go out with the guys and play. *Sigh*
He gets that ever-present fishy pole in hand and you just gotta let him be. Besides we were looking forward to unwinding with the computer last night. We’re trying to get ourselves out of the pattern of just coming in and vegging in front of the TV the balance of the night.
There was one day this week after being with Dr. Marvin that we came home and worked on meta-tags for the book. We didn’t get too far into that before it was over-tiring to us, but the desire to push on to new worlds was there. I don’t have a real clear idea how that-all project will turn out. I think if I were to encapsulate it now, I would be thinking … Hmm, and what would we be thinking?
This would be like a hard subject. I don’t know if we’ve talked about being at Dr. M’s at all this week. The first thought is that he’s given us option to be taping the session. The first time he mentioned that a hand of our when automatically up in front of our face between him and us and we found ourselves quickly saying, “nope, nope, nope!”
I’m not sure where that strong reaction came from, but it might have had something to do with reaching an overwhelmed state. It was like saying too much! Too much!
I think we’ll have to think through that some more. We might want to give it a test run to see how it might work out. Hmm … we tried recording something on the phone, but it was not a very good recording. We might want to look into that recorder we have around here somewhere that’s actually a recorder. I’m not sure what I think about that … there’s one part where we might find ourselves way too frustrated after we started recording because so much time has gone on where we weren’t recording we might have to deal with it as a very big loss. We’re already dealing with having lost time before we’d started to blog.
I have to think that we’d finally met a place in time where we were ready for our life’s story to be told. We did run into with the Tech guy someone else having lost correspondences on AOL. They were giving him advice as how to retrieve it in files. I don’t know if they would be locked away in one of my old laptops, but then … well, I’m just not too sure.
When I think back to that time of writing every day to Rich and sending copies to Dr. Marvin, was that I don’t think either was reading it too seriously. Matter of fact one of the reasons going over to the journal/blog. We wanted to take more self-interest than pushing others to be reading something that only we might be interested in. One day we’ll have to see about getting something out of the old computer. We won’t throw it away, but at this point even finding the battery cord might be tough. Best to let those thoughts go – at least for now.
So, Rich has gone down for some clothes … Ahh there he is. It had gotten quiet here because he’d frozen the show he was watching. I think next load there will be clothes to fold, but for right now, we’re ok.
Ok, next? I’m pretty sure we wrote yesterday about being in contact with people from our family way long ago – in particular with the Ludford’s. We did send on an extra email to a distant cousin who we thought might be interested though I don’t think she was a regular email – Internet person and I don’t think she’s any better than we were in keeping in touch. Her name is Louise. If I could be more trustworthy in keeping caught up in relationships – the one with her would be a good thing. She’s my only contact to my father’s people though now finding these people named Ludford is pretty cool. I hope she responds to our email.
I had forgotten our book on publishing at work, so that is going to take another week to figure out. It was a little overwhelming it getting a book that was 1000 pages long … Wow! That’s going to take some going through. We have to not be intimidated, but for the time being, I guess for this weekend we should concentrate on either writing or editing. I don’t think there are any other priorities. Just that familiar itch to be doing something new and unique. Hopefully having found the MI place (mental illness – I’m afraid to say) was the right new thing to have happened.
I’ve never had too much luck with other multiples. I get tired easily of them being in places much less mature. I think I complained about this long time ago, but we don’t have parts that spell incorrectly their thoughts on-line hoping to get attention. We think that we should be parenting our own and that children although sometimes responsive to others, should be having their needs met more by Dr. M. or ourselves. Anything else would leave them vulnerable.
I’m not criticizing others as much as stating our preferences. Too we find that if our parts want to convey anything it’s usually through other parts who know how to type.
We read something threatening going back to the issue of multiplicity as real or unreal. I think that kind of thing where littles come out at say things almost grammatically correct, but misspelled is what gives multiples a bad name. I think that’s the kind of habit you get from hanging around other multiples. Away from all that … I feel different. You know where we are at after all this reading, just we find ourselves reacting differently.
I think I saw it a lot in the conversations. Some people are just at such elementary levels of relationships that it seems silly to think we’re even on the same planet. I don’t want to feel better than others, I just want to understand us at our best all the time and that means not being helpless on-line where there are predators. A lot of them don’t have a real good idea of how therapy works either … not saying all, but the part of not telling your therapist what’s on your mind?
That’s just way wrong and not necessarily honest. How could they not convey things to an empathetic audience like a T, but come on-line and spread all kinds of personal info over the Internet. I’m just not sure which battle they are waging.
Ok, ok … enough of that. I feel ourselves getting our gander stirred. Shhh…
Ahh! It says here in the news that a dalmation has had 18 pups in one litter. Now THERE THAT IS mother! God Bless her! AND that’s just after having a litter of 15 last year. Jeese! 33 kids? Oh man her Christmas shopping list must be horrendous – and then BIRTHDAYS!??
Oh Lordy … you just have to see these pictures!
Aren’t they the warmest things you ever saw? Well, at least close! Did you see that little pink tongue on the last shot? Oh man … cuteness personified!
Just need to ooh and Ahh proper over her a few moments. How complete she must feel. Her name is buttons and her father was a lead Dalmatian on 101 Dalmatians and two of her kids I guess are under contract. She’s just a wonder!
Shoot Rich says he won’t look at her because he knows how cute they look, shoot, just brings little tears!
Awe … perfect a very old friend just IM’d … I must have been put on her chain mail because I’ve gotten a few now of one of those things people pass on. I should write her a note and see how she’s doing. She was a very good friend.
She sent this – except in real life it glitters!
This friend is my oldest on-line friend. Her name is Pat.
There we sent on a small note to see if she’d like to meet up. If there were a beer … we’d be sharing it I’m sure. This is the friend on the East Coast we went to see once when we were real down. It had been back 12 years ago. We might have known her 3-4 years before that. Maybe she would remember. Every great blue moon … we connect just for a split second in time and we get the warm fuzziness all over.
*sigh* Just think Dalmatians and now this!
Ok, let’s be calm again … our little playful hearts are just a pitter-pattering!
Rich was just cleaning up the litter to make things more bearable here. I’m pretty sure Rich is sent down directly from God’s crème de la crop! He’s getting the first load of clothes up from the dryer so we’re going to need to go in a second FOR a second. Maybe we can say something especially intelligent. But, I guess for now we just watch angels sparkle!
There we go! One laundry load is down for the count! We got Rich with our sneakiness. We were laying on his bed hiding under the covers. He didn’t notice us when he put the clothes basket on the bed and he called us twice the last time saying isn’t there somebody that wants to help and then we jumped out from behind the covers and yelled WE DO!!! He didn’t see that coming *giggle* it was a nice surprise.
Oh Lordy. We’re back again. It’s now about 12:15 pm. We just went through something terrible. Rich had come up from a load of clothes to talk to us and through the conversation we were like feeling worse and worse and then he went downstairs again so it must have been about a 45 minute talk and when he came back we were under the covers crying and feeling helpless and depressed. But, then we snuck over to lay our head on his lap, and then I think we fell asleep a little, and then someone else came out to talk and we were crying and asking about stuff pretty much like what is the meaning of life and then it occurred to us that we should probably go to the gym and Rich was telling us we needed to take a shower, so we did that and now we’re just letting our hair dry.
I don’t know why we went from so happy to so depressed. I can track back some of the conversation, but what our thinking was or the reaction or because of how it was feeling it was just a mess.
Rich had come up and I think the main point was that he had to tell me that I wouldn’t be going to Shreveport LA and that he’d be taking one of his fishy friends instead. Intellectually, I knew we had built ourselves up for that inevitability, but it might have had more of a toll – especially, since Thom would be so close yet so far away. That was one of the things Rich was saying that that would get us depressed too, because Thom would just spend a little time maybe go out to dinner and he probably wouldn’t even give us a tour. Rich knows I don’t want to press the kids to have them give me anything that isn’t voluntary – like in giving Christmas gifts. In a sense now I think it’s no different from Rich … just a little time with us maybe out to dinner and then we don’t even get to be out on the boat with him.
We torture ourselves with the question whether to ask for more attention or settle peacefully for less.
But, I think the main part was that … well, he started off by saying that the first week or two of March he’d take me fishing and that’s about when I knew he was going to drop the other shoe, and then it couldn’t be too secure of a plan, because he was saying that if he took Ron, then his friend Bob, was going to feel put out and he would also want to be going fishing with Rich. It’s just I guess that Ron and his wife are going to Texas in March so he’d be freed up to go late February and Bob had already told Rich he couldn’t go – though might have wanted a little wiggle room there. I knew I was low person on the totem pole, because his first choice would be to have somebody there who could know what was going on with the boat on its first trip out. What makes sense intellectually isn’t what makes sense in your feelings.
The next thing he talked about was stuff that I’d normally want to know as to how the divorce was going. But, now that was being put off again. He said that only his lawyer was at court and the other lawyer didn’t come and he didn’t know exactly what happened to the proposal, but he said his lawyer was going to write it up and give it to her lawyer, but in our mind it was crashing in on us. Like, what? Why didn’t your lawyer have it done to present in court? I was hearing in my ears him saying there’s another court date in March. This continual putting off and off and that being acceptable is driving me up the wall. April 2, it will have been 2 years since the separation and the divorce is still not settled.
There was the part about how much he was giving her. He said that it was probably too much at least that’s what his lawyer is saying, but then Rich has his plans and ideas. He was saying something if it didn’t go through again – if they asked for more, he would bring them to the lesser amount. He wants some appreciation I think for what he’s doing – if not from the wife, from the kids, or even me.
I don’t know how directly my mood was spiraling down so fast, but I remember thinking yeah, but what’s in it for me. She’s getting what she wanted you gotted what you wanted – a boat and being away, but then what did I get? I didn’t have much more than a boyfriend – no thought of a husband, and the relationship we did have has to be secret. There wouldn’t be a house or even a confirmation that things would be better sometime down the line.
I think it was somewhere in here that we started feeling the feelings settle in of getting up, because as much as we were arguing with Rich we should have some plan, some effort from his part that we were building a life together, we were like having to put in as much as he did – so we missed the being taken care of by our “male” and then it was like he was going to be gone and we hadn’t ever gotten to plan out more than he wants in his life to fish, golf and play cards. The sound of but what do I get out of it was very strong. He doesn’t look at it as a matter of perspective like I’ll put in more because I have more. We are to each put in the same X amount of money, and then the money that doesn’t come in the direction of him AND us we would naturally not have any claim to think it shouldn’t be going anywhere but to provide for his sports. I’m thinking aren’t you dumb or something don’t you know … it’s not yours let go of that killer grip.
Then after much arguing of what I wouldn’t get then he said I never said you’d get anything out of it, but in getting me. The thought that I couldn’t be thoroughly impressed with those thoughts made me feel even more depressed, because I saw myself that could hold the love of my love valueless in the big picture. It would be calling all the happiness between as some sort of a sob story land plotting thing.
That’s what I was feeling because all my hopes and dreams of being in a better life were being dashed he was saying this is as good as it’s going to get. We weren’t in any condition to be hearing that. What is it that people want out of life … is it always just a matter of more?
But, then before he had to say it it came crashing in on us that he wasn’t responsible for any of this at all. The dreams that weren’t getting accomplished were because I wasn’t able to do these things for myself. That it wasn’t him that had failed, it was me. He was getting out of life what he wanted … it was me who wasn’t making progress on my dreams. He after all had the divorce, a non-committing relationship with me, his boat, his freedom his friends and someone to mess around with. He had no other needs as to at least what he is proclaiming. No, he didn’t say all this, but without thinking it was what we were thinking and the feelings were pretty harsh on ourselves. So instead of getting more or less of him, we were also getting us subtracted from. It was going to have to be me the one that has to be responsible.
But, I at that point had no confidence that anything I could do would be valued for an exchange of money. By about here we were already starting to crash. We head for the safety of our chair and in shutting our tear-stained eyes. Later lying on his lap which for some reason felt safer than not, is when our mind started going through the suicidal type thought process in that the more repressed part and us couldn’t see any meaning of life. We couldn’t figure it out. We knew that if Rich DID give us a house and the car to tow the boat we were just going to want something else.
I couldn’t understand if this neediness was what life was all about. Somewhere in there Rich had talked about being happy, but then in the way we were thinking was that we were happy lying in his lap, so why did we need anything more. What was our motivation to ever leave the house? We’d just lie there like one of those puppies tethered to the mother’s nipple, but even that point – Rich doesn’t prefer to think sexually in the morning so even that promise of intimacy wasn’t being felt as real.
Hmm, Rich came in the room with a plate of something … its 12:45 pm. He didn’t offer me anything. Probably is not a good thing for that to happen right now. I think we’re out of that real bad place we were at in that tears weren’t streaming past my eyes. But, the sense of depression remains. I just don’t get it why we’re here – what is our purpose or value. Rich said something about we were to be here to make him happy. But, we were feeling the guilt in that we’d made him feel bad.
Every time we have scary feelings or desperate or however else you label them then he was saying in one way or another … then I’ve disappointed you just tell me that you’re tired of me and I’ll leave. Ok, less add abandonment into the picture and stir that up.
I think it’s like leaving my sensitive negative feelings to be held for hostage … like if you have these feelings, then just implode us because that’s what it was feeling like to him. We complained that what he really wanted was one of those 50’s women who met their husbands at the end of the day and took care of them and who always was perfectly happy – the Stepford Wives. I was saying I couldn’t do that that I was having feelings that aren’t always positive, but they didn’t mean I didn’t like him or was disappointed in him – just I’m trying to adjust without losing hope of having a life in the future that was better. Just some days I have feelings other than happy.
It kind of just went on like this for a bit, until that point where we shut down entirely. After we’d come back there were other parts to talk and smooth out the breaches. But, then here we are still feeling anything less than spectacular. I think that Rich watches fishy shows for 5-6 hours straight to avoid the reality that I’m here.
Even if I could accept this and rethink that we should be appreciating us for us, then it would leave the thought that we ARE disappointing ourselves. We don’t understand why we think as we do. Like how it is that we hold that most people in America live in houses, but that it would be ok to always live in an apartment. How was it that I should feel it wasn’t ok to be where we were instead of being where we wanted? Rich was right. If I wanted to live in a house then what were we doing wrong. How come we couldn’t do this for ourselves?
We looked over to where our writing project was sitting and we felt miserable in that we hadn’t said anything in particular that was needed to be read by anyone.
How could I be thinking that all of this writing was significant? Rich was complaining that the majority of our free time goes into writing 27-30 hours a week at least. It was like he was telling me that maybe I was wasting my time. I don’t think he would say that, but he would think that if we filled in our life with more things like he did we could be happier.
I don’t think he understands what it means to us to be writing. It’s what we do. It’s what we think of every time we don’t have to be doing something else. Maybe it is me that’s confusing it because it’s become something more. Not only is the writing to write, but we’ve got this backward thought that the writing should pull us out of some depths, it is what we hope for that will put us in better straights.
But, then again why? Why is what we’re writing or thinking when we sit down with fingers to keyboard … why is it important? If I can’t grasp these thoughts, then how am I going to help the next person?
Are we back to that … like being here to make Rich happy … am I here to make you happy? Am I here to make me happy? What difference would it make if we were gone?
Our sense of hope … in wanting to have been placed here on Earth for some purpose is being felt shallowly. We always then reach for our boys. The boys consider us worthwhile? We feel their frustration with us for thinking so little of them that we could think lesser thoughts like this and that it would be ok with them. I know this is just bad thinking. We knew we would find negative thoughts to match the positive things we’d started to hope for. This is all to be expected so why does it matter … why should we put stock in any of our thoughts or feelings negative or positive. They lead us to the next point and the next, but what is the worth of the whole? I just don’t get it. What’s the matter with me?
Except by now … we’re thinking probably we should get out for a while. It is a good idea to go to the gym. We need to be putting thoughts more positive into this. We want to listen to our iPod and just walk and walk. I need to figure stuff out.