I guess this is the deep end...

Awww thanks. I think I woke up the neighbors yelling when I heard Karmas end of the phone call.

"What the FUCK does Cricket have to do with this? What role, other than waking us up to the fail that our marriage was becoming, did she have? Cuz I'm pretty sure you and I being on better terms, helped the country." And I went from there.

Just another one of those things that snuck up on us I guess :)
 
That is just amazing.

I love you both so much right now, I have an ear-to-ear grin.
 
Been super agitated the last couple days.

I had wanted to go spend the weekend at J's, mostly so I could have a Grandma-free couple days. Then stuff started fucking exploding in two towns near him, and it took them awhile to confirm that it was, in fact, not a terrorist act, really, it was some asshat who's upset at Big Brother.
J was also fighting with his dad, and I was genuinely afraid I'd be visiting him in jail later for putting his dad through a table or something.

So instead, we stayed at my place. All fine and good, usually.

But I really, really need some peace and quiet. I want to be left the fuck alone. Grandma Ginny can't be in a room with someone and not talk or bitch at them. She just can't.
I understand that after 20 years living alone, loneliness makes it hard to not engage people in conversation every chance you get, but if I wanted to be a part of that conversation, I wouldn't be playing WoW with my headphones on and the sound turned all the way up, so I can better hear the dying screams of gnomes and elves. Similarly, if I wanted you in my conversation, I wouldn't have started one with someone else, on a topic you know nothing about, so that I could stop mid-sentence every couple minutes to try to explain to you what I was telling someone else who's not you.
If I wanted to talk to you, I would. I try, sometimes, but it's hard, because we don't operate in the same worlds.

Mom is leaving town, and that always leaves a curious power vaccuum that Grandma will half-attempt to fill.

Now, I don't usually go on power trips, but I have one hard and fast rule:

If the matriarch of my household is gone, you either fill her role completely and act like a responsible adult, or you get the fuck out of the way so I can.

This week is going to suck.
However, Daddy is at wit's end with stress and worry due to work and construction, and with my brother and sister in school, there need to be two adults. There will need to be grocery trips, and rides to cello and piano lessons and playdates, and all that jazz.

Odds are good I'm gonna learn to drive my grandma's broke-ass truck this week. She and I went to pick up my sister the other day, and I was genuinely uncertain as to whether or not I was going to survive the ten minute drive.
She's too fucking old to drive, but is desperately clinging to this illusion of independence, and we're working our way gradually towards telling her that she just can't do it anymore.

This'll be fun like cancer.
 
I suck at balancing time. Always have.
I have very few friends. This has been true for a long time. I'm trying to change it.

Those two things mean that I'm trying to make more friends, spend time with them, and not double-book myself every Saturday night.

Before I met Karma, I went to school, and I came home and helped around the house, did my homework, and spent hours online, or in a book. I really only have a handful of friends, and most of them have moved pretty far away from me. A lives in another state, M lives miles away and her mother hates me. I chat with people from school on occasion, but much of the last five or six years of my life has been characterized by profound loneliness. Once every month or two M would come over for a weekend. Every two or three years, I'd see A. Sometimes I'd go out somewhere with kids from school. I rarely did it twice.

After I met Karma, I started spending any time I could free up with him.

When Karma and I got involved, I started spending obscenely late hours with him any time I could. I stayed out way too late on school nights, and regularly sacrificed projects and homework time just to see him for a couple of hours.

I have responsibilities at home that mean I don't actually have an overwhelming amount of free time in my life. Last year, he got more of my time than I had to give.

He's mad at me right now, because lately, almost every time he's wanted to see me, I've been hanging out with friends. He wants to spend time with me, alone.

On one hand I feel guilty for making him feel like I don't want to be around him, or spend time with just him.

On the other hand, I'm hurt that he doesn't realize how much I've sacrificed in the past to chase him. I've lost several friends over him - including my best friend M, because her mother found out about him. A lot of people respect me less because I chose to pursue him. I'm hurt that he can't find it in himself to be patient while I try to find time for everyone, when he got the benefit of almost all of my free time for a long, long time.
Much of the last year, I blew off almost everybody except him, because he only ever seemed to be free at obscenely late hours of the night, and I wanted to see him.
I would promise J that I'd spend an afternoon with him, then end up canceling to go see Brett, or inviting both of them over, so I could keep both promises. A stopped hearing from me. M and I gave up.

I'll also add, here, that since I was a secret at first, there were a lot of nights he'd promise to come get me, and I'd sneak out of the house and sit in the cold for hours, waiting. I should have been sleeping, or finishing homework. But every time the phone rang, I dropped everything I was doing. More than half the time, he'd never come, and he'd never call.
I try not to hold grudges, especially with loved ones, but I feel like a lot of the time he hasn't respected MY time, and how much of it I've given him.

I've been trying to identify things that fuel my depression, and loneliness is a huge one.
So I've been trying to make friends. I've been trying to go out and do things, trying to be social again.

It's been really helping.

But it's also been an adjustment - I'm used to only really having J and Karma to hang out with. I'm not very good at making sure everyone gets time, because my free time is sporadic at best.

Things at home are rough. My parents are both doing a lot of overtime at home, bringing work home, etc. My grandma's requiring more supervision. The house is still under construction.

Usually, I invite people over, so I can both have company and be there for my family if they need anything.
My family all find Karma disrespectful and rude, and don't want him over. They can't stand how he talks to them or to me.
In the interest of avoiding conflict, I've stopped inviting him over. That really kind of limits the time I can spend with him. I've been waiting to find time to go hang out with him at his place, while also being around for my family.
It's really, really hard to do both, and it really hurts me that he doesn't see how much I'm trying to make EVERYONE happy - for once, myself included.

I feel like I've asked for precious little from him - I just need time to work shit out. The changes that go along with that mean that I have to learn new ways of dividing time so everyone gets to chill, and everyone gets the support and help and downtime they need.

Does anyone have advice for how to free up time, or balance it better?

Do schedules help?
Like, J gets Monday through Wednesday evenings, and Karma gets Thursday through Saturday evenings, and Sunday is for other friends or something?

What do I do when I start school again?

My last year of high school was full of nights out until six in the morning, a cup of coffee on my way out the door, and zeroes on assignments. It is a fucking marvel I didn't have a complete breakdown, or fail my senior year of high school. He'd tell me he'd come see me, I'd sit and wait for hours, and he'd never show, and not call. Or I'd stay out with him all night, because the time he could spare for me was so precious and so very, very little. I CHOSE to spend my time with him. I chose to spend time I didn't have to spare with him. I felt like it was worth it at the time. Now I just feel hurt.
I feel like I've been super patient and forgiving with him and the troubles he's had managing time - don't I deserve the same patience?

I feel really hurt, and really confused. I can manage time just fine with school and work, but not my social life. I don't get why. Maybe it's because I'm not used to having one.

I'm kind of at a loss. What do I do?

I want to spend time with friends, I want to make new friends, I want to hang out with the old ones. I'm really really prone to accidentally promising two or three people time in the same weekend. The solution has generally been to hang out with all of them - not ideal, I know, but I like telling people "Umm...I promised to hang out with someone else..." even less.

Just...Ugh.
 
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Scheduling can help. It may change from month to month, but keep everyone informed and they won't think you are trying to avoid them.

We have two kids and we HAVE to schedule. Everyone knows that we are not free on Mondays unless they want to show up at a Boy Scout meeting. During football season, I just flat tell everyone, MWTh I will be at the football field and you are welcome to come visit me there. Saturday's are game days and since I'm on the field, I won't even answer my phone or return texts.

Believe it or not, it makes things easier on everyone, because they know ahead of time that there are certain days or times I'm not available, they don't keep trying to meet up on those days and they don't think I'm just being difficult and avoiding them. It will also make things easier on you, because you won't feel so preasured to please everyone and know you can't.
 
I've promised Karma to stay out of things. So I will. But am wondering why a schedule seems like such foreign idea to you. You guys had one before and it seemed to work. Karma and J both support that school needs to come first. So I am not seeing why this is such an issue. It's not like Karma doesn't want to hang out with you while with other people, he just doesn't want that to be the only time he gets to see you. After going 3 weeks without seeing each other, I can understand his frustration that the first time he did get to see you it was with a mass amount of people and he didn't really get any you time. I don't think that was a disrespect of your time at all.

Karma is going to be in school too, and working (hopefully), time together is something you'll both have to work on. But I don't see anything wrong with the fact the you spent a ton of time with J while we were in Ohio and all Karma wanted was a few hours of your time. I don't see how that is not being patient.

Maybe a schedule is the only way you can manage your time. Set aside these days for school work, these days for Karma time, these days for J time.

I'll leave it at that.
 
I've never been good at sticking to schedules. I'm too sporadic for that. I like just arbitrarily deciding to go out and do something, or whatever.

I also remember having a difficult time making sure everyone's time lined up right when we had multiple school schedules to consider. I'm used to hitting up J or Karma whenever homework's not too bad, which is unfortunately not a real concrete window of time.
It's not so much that schedules are foreign to me as that I'm used to not having much luck making them really work.

Of course, my goal for this year is to work on new habits. So I guess this is another to add to the list. :)
 
Schedules can be flexible. In fact it's probably not a great idea to pack it so tight there is no wiggle room, because something will always throw a monkey wrench in there somewhere. When we are young, we schedule our responsibilities, but as we get older, our responsibilies rule us and we have to schedule our fun time or loose our sanity.
 
When Karma and I got involved, I started spending obscenely late hours with him any time I could. I stayed out way too late on school nights, and regularly sacrificed projects and homework time just to see him for a couple of hours.

I have responsibilities at home that mean I don't actually have an overwhelming amount of free time in my life. Last year, he got more of my time than I had to give.

. . .
I'm hurt that he doesn't realize how much I've sacrificed in the past to chase him. I've lost several friends over him - including my best friend M, because her mother found out about him. A lot of people respect me less because I chose to pursue him. I'm hurt that he can't find it in himself to be patient while I try to find time for everyone, when he got the benefit of almost all of my free time for a long, long time.

Much of the last year, I blew off almost everybody except him, because he only ever seemed to be free at obscenely late hours of the night, and I wanted to see him.

. . . there were a lot of nights he'd promise to come get me, and I'd sneak out of the house and sit in the cold for hours, waiting. I should have been sleeping, or finishing homework. But every time the phone rang, I dropped everything I was doing. More than half the time, he'd never come, and he'd never call.

. . . I feel like a lot of the time he hasn't respected MY time, and how much of it I've given him.

. . .
Does anyone have advice for how to free up time, or balance it better?

Do schedules help?

. . .
My last year of high school was full of nights out until six in the morning, a cup of coffee on my way out the door, and zeroes on assignments. It is a fucking marvel I didn't have a complete breakdown, or fail my senior year of high school. He'd tell me he'd come see me, I'd sit and wait for hours, and he'd never show, and not call. Or I'd stay out with him all night, because the time he could spare for me was so precious and so very, very little. I CHOSE to spend my time with him. I chose to spend time I didn't have to spare with him. I felt like it was worth it at the time. Now I just feel hurt.
I feel like I've been super patient and forgiving with him and the troubles he's had managing time - don't I deserve the same patience?

. . .
I want to spend time with friends, I want to make new friends, I want to hang out with the old ones.

Cricket, I have been thinking of you ever since you posted this. What you're going through has resonated very strongly within me because this is something I can relate to a great deal. You are struggling with issues that are deeper than just scheduling and organizing your life. It's about making yourself and your life goals your top priority.

I know far too well that feeling you have when you make a choice to do something or be with someone, at your own expense. You sacrifice time and effort that could have gone into schoolwork or maintaining friendships, something that benefits and nurtures you, or that you are passionate about -- to spend time with someone you love. And even though it seems to those on the outside that you made that choice willingly and happily, because you're smiling at the attention you're getting from the person you chose to be with,
on the inside you know you didn't honor yourself. A nagging voice in your head constantly reminds you that you gave up something important, to go somewhere or be with someone simply to assuage your loneliness. No one else knows how much it eats at you, because you don't let it show. It's a drug you indulge in, but the high doesn't last long. That's okay, you tell yourself. You keep making that choice because, although temporary, it feels good to get the instant gratification of a lover's attentions rather than face loneliness or feelings of inadequacy, or other unpleasant things like responsibility. I have trouble with this as well. It's like always going for the dessert without eating a nutritious meal first. You know it's sweet and gives you a high, but you're still left empty because you didn't follow through on a commitment you made to yourself, such as doing well in school and being there for your family and friends.

This is something my therapist is trying to get me to see myself now, and I am probably more than twice your age, so I commend you for looking at this stuff now while you're young. It isn't easy when we just want to satisfy a craving. Anyone would much rather float off in the euphoria of having a lover in the middle of the night to be with us, put their arms around us, make love, rather than do the hard work we need to do -- and feel how alone we truly are while we are doing it. But committing to yourself and following through on that commitment is how to feel satisfied, satiated, and well in ourselves. Doing all that grown-up stuff that isn't as easy or fun -- do you know what I mean? The struggle you're facing (and me, too) is about growing up, and it seems like it sucks, but it will bring you more peace and happiness if you learn to create boundaries that allow you to be at the center of your life, feeling whole, and to honor the commitments you make to yourself.


Relationships are icing on the cake, you are the cake. You need to give yourself all the ingredients to make that cake firm and buoyant enough to accept the icing, which makes things sweeter. Ingredients like self-esteem, self-love, acceptance, inner peace, feeling accomplished, completing tasks, and acknowledging and honoring who you are. Getting that college degree and knowing you did all you could to succeed. How do you do this? I keep reminding myself this: to gain self-esteem, do esteemable things. Is it esteemable to put others' needs before my own? Is it esteemable to go back on my own word to myself, and to abandon my own emotional nourishment to keep someone else happy? Does this all mean I have to be selfish? Sometimes. Maybe a lot of times. It doesn't mean I can't be there for other people either, but I have to be there for myself first, just like on an airplane when they give you the safety lecture and tell people, "put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you put one on a child." How can you take care of your needs and wants and passions (be your own parent) if you are giving away your power and giving up on yourself?


So, all of this is to say that when you make a schedule for yourself, remember who is at the center of it -- YOU! If you need to succeed in school, have friends in your life, deal with family, and do things that nurture your well-being, those are the priorities in your schedule. Take care of YOU first. And then if Karma or anyone else wants to be with you, they need to adjust their schedules to fit into your life. You shouldn't be twisting yourself into a pretzel to accommodate everyone. And if you can't see each other as often, so be it. This is your life you are living and it's not the end of the world to have some distance as long as you are taking care of the things that are important to you, that feed your soul, and nourish your spirit. I'm sure you have already learned that blowing off school and waiting by the side of the road in the middle of the night to get some attention from someone doesn't do that for you.
And, besides all that, you'll be a heck of a lot more fun to be around if you are truly happy, standing firm in your own convictions, and proud of yourself for pulling through and accomplishing difficult things, instead of feeling fragmented and frazzled from trying to please everyone else all the time.

You can do this. You are stronger and braver than you know. Listen to that small voice inside you that knows what's truly important. Don't give in to the drug of avoidance - it's okay to feel alone, all of us humans are alone, ultimately. But somewhere inside you, you can also find your own strength and you'll be all right. I wish you the best.
 
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Cricket,

I've been dealing with this topic a lot in my life recently. The last 5-6 posts in my blog are related to it.

It might be something you can find some usefulness in reading...

Hugs!
 
hugs,

aren't we all struggling through some lesson or another?

time management is a bitch (seriously).

We have a household of 10.
3 adults with jobss- all different schedules!!
1 adult prego-dr appts weekly & lamaze classes & major social life.
1 adult (me) stay at home mom.
1 adult-here part time, no job + court battle.

1 kid in public school + weekly counseling.
1 kid homeschool + monthly medical + swimming class.
1 kid preschool age + swimming class.
1 kid homeschool-only here part time + 2 weekly medical + swimming + 1 monthly counseling + court battle.

Trying to coordinate anything together is damn near to impossible. Planning when we were doing Christmas was a NIGHTMARE.

Try to remind yourself of the little steps that you take which work in any given day/hour/moment.

Sneacail wrote to me on my blog and said it was something like a couple taking a road trip when the wife is pregnant.

The man see's "where they are going" as the goal, he's "final destination minded".
But the wife see's each possible bathroom stop as the goal, she's "small step minded".

Try to remind yourself of the small steps that are progressive. Then give yourself (and loved ones who make small steps too) a pat on the back.

:)
 
Homework dates ;)
 
It's in my signature. ;) Might make yourself sick if you read all of the back posts, unless you like horror stories.
:eek:
 
Ah! They aren't all bad LR! One hell of tale you are telling though! Love to ya! Been kind of MIA on here. So freakin busy in the real world.
Hi Cricket and Karma and my dear friend Mohegan! Happy 2011 to you all!:)
 
I can't wait until the basement's finished, so Grams has her own space. I NEED some peace and quiet, or I'm going to have to kill someone. :mad:

A whole fucking MONTH at home, with no homework, should be a blessing - not a curse!
 
I have hit a really weird, and really really painful place.
I think I'm losing my goddamn mind.

I have always considered myself a pretty forgiving person. Like, I've forgiven a lot of shit that I should NOT have, and have certainly not taken time to be angry before forgiving. After having been hurt by my X, I started not only tolerating, but forgiving anything and everything - I still loved, and even forgave the guy who had been hurting me.

Except apparently I haven't.

Everything is still there.

It's like I was cleaning house in my head, and in the process, I found this huge room in the basement that I never new was there, and it's just full of ugly.

Suddenly, instead of hiding in this weird sense of obligatory mercy, I'm angry at EVERYONE for EVERYTHING. Everything hurts like it happened yesterday. Everything is an attack that I'm not willing to tolerate anymore.

I'm still furious and heartbroken with Karma for everything in our relationship that has ever hurt me. I'm mad at J, at Mohegan, at my family, at some kid from the third grade whose name I don't remember....
It's ridiculous.

I've always had a relatively short fuse, but I never burn for long at all. Usually, I'm livid for a couple hours, tops. Then I've forgiven and forgotten, and moved on with my life.
Except not.

I feel like everyone is out to hurt me, and for once, I'm not in the mood to hide from them, or negotiate, I'm in the mood to set them all on fire and beat them with a brick. I could cut ties with everyone I know, and leave town, and I don't think I'd regret it until tomorrow.
I even nearly snapped at A, and I'm never, ever mad at her. She's never done anything to hurt me, but when she txted to see if I could hang out, I just about tore her a new one, for no fucking reason.

Right now, I'm mad at Mohegan because I feel like I'm being blamed for hurting their marriage. On some level, my brain knows this is illogical. They've both told me pretty clearly that their marriage is fine.
But right now, I feel like I've tolerated a shit ton of blame and harsh words, and I'm not in the mood to take it anymore. I know it's not logical, I know it's not accurate, but I haven't felt an anger this potent in a long, long time.
I don't want to cost her a place to vent. I've been considering leaving the forum on and off for a good long while, because this is where Mohegan goes to get stuff off her chest, and I don't want to take that from her. I don't want her to censor herself when she's letting it all out, and I don't want to rob her of the advice she gets here.
Reading here has been helpful and hurtful to me in roughly equal measures, so I don't want to lose the support base, but I don't want to take it from her either.
I'm thinking about taking a hiatus, at the very least.

Right now, I don't trust Karma because of all the promises he broke at the beginning of our relationship, and all the times I've heard people telling me he was hanging around other chicks. I don't trust him because our relationship started out with me being the other woman.
I realize this is unfair and he can't do anything about it, and right now I don't give a shit.

This upsets me, because I try really hard to be fair and forgiving. I'm a Libra in the worst way. It upsets me more because I'm lashing out at the people I love over things that can't be changed, and hurts that are too far into the past to be mended. I really, really hate this. I don't like hurting anyone, and right now, I'm turning this rage-fueled venom on everyone.

So naturally, my response is to push people away so I don't hurt them further.
Except that hurts too.

Fuck all of this. With a chainsaw.
 
Well...

This probably won't help, but...

I understand.

I really do understand.

It does suck to think that you've put something behind you and then have a moment when all of a sudden everything you ever thought you put behind you was smacking you in the face.
To boot, feeling like you don't "belong" anywhere and not being sure you even want to.

Been there, might actually still be there... :rolleyes: But I've been there.

I'm sorry you're struggling through this stuff Cricket. I don't have much else to say that would be better, but I'm sorry.
 
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