Self-Medicating

Tonight requires a glass of wine. I'd have more, but it'd just mean I need to go to bed so one will do.

Today was actually quite lovely for most of the day. I got up early and went over to finish my jewelry order. I ended up getting everything I wanted except one bracelet! Somehow, I got $180 in free jewelry instead of $150. I had to spend a little to get what I wanted but it's ok! I used my Wells Fargo card as a Goodbye, I'll miss you much present.

After my jewelry orders were placed, I left for a playdate still buzzing from all those sparkly things I will be getting next week. Jacob was kind of a pill because he doesn't know how to SHARE and he was hungry but after feeding him some chicken nuggets and pizza, he took a nap. And fell off the bed. But he was fine! He went back to sleep and took a long nap; where he woke up much happier although still without the ability to share. It was nice to sit and talk to my friend while her little one slept and her older one watched cartoons. We swapped labor stories and talked about vaccines and working. It's nice to have real friends again!

In the evening, we went over to CS's house because his grandma is up for the holiday. Mostly I watched TV in the basement as they are undertaking a huge redecoration/remodel at the moment and 4 people is too many in one small room in my opinion. Plus, I feel huge tension whenever I'm in a room with his mom so I just take myself elsewhere. I offered to make scones for breakfast tomorrow and I was met with absolute silence so I guess that's a no?

I know I need to take some responsibility for the demise of the relationship between his mom and me but we really need to not live in the same house. I am angry, hurt, I miss my boyfriend and our son misses his daddy. I want to get up in the mornings and lay with CS and Jacob and watch cartoons without having to go upstairs to his room. I want to fall asleep next to him and know that he's stiff from sleeping with our baby too. His mom has stolen six months of our lives together and why? Because God told her too? I don't understand.

Now, I'm here at my mom's. Alone. Because CS wants to spend time with his grandma and my baby is sleeping. My family is all over the place this year. Tomorrow, I will wake up with Jacob and we will be alone. No one will be here to greet us. There is nothing here for me to cook or prepare. I didn't offer to prepare anything tomorrow because my recipes are considered unusual and odd at his house and I'm not making something for everyone to avoid.

I don't understand how things have progressed to this point. How I feel so trapped and helpless. Where did I go so wrong? What have I done to deserve this?

I'll be back tomorrow. I'll be thankful, I promise. Here is my reason:

Oh Look!

I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It leads straight to trailer trashville, but it's a faint glimmer of hope that we will be moving out of CS's parent's house and into a place of our own.

CS's boss told him the other day that he could fix up the trailer that the company owns and we could move in if we wanted to have a place of our own. This is a very nice offer, I suppose, it's just that the house he's offering is more suited to middle age men who have never married as opposed to a stay at home mom with a toddler. It's not awful, but it's not good either. The trailer sits behind the company shop and it has a fenced yard but it's overtaken by weeds. We had to walk on pallets to get to the door, and even then we had to fight through some nasty brush. Once inside, it's clear that no one has been in to do anything in a while. There are beer cans in boxes and all the furnace covers are out of the floor. There are clear sticky flytraps covered with flies in the windows and a plunger in the toilet. There is a hole in the floor by the back door, and I suspect the hole is larger now because CS went over the other day to try and replace it but didn't have all he needed at the time. The carpet needs deep cleaned and the kitchen/bedroom/bathroom needs tile or something to cover the particle board.

I could go on, but I think I'll stop here. It's too depressing. My options are continue to live in a real house and watch my relationship fail a little more each day or go live in a fixed up dump until CS's job decides to pay him what they agreed. I guess if we can fix up the inside of the house, I can just ignore the outside. All I really know is that we can't stay here anymore. CS's mom had his dad put baby locks on all the kitchen drawers to keep Jacob out. Maybe I take things too literally, but that just screams "You are not welcome here" so I'll figure out a way to leave so she can go back to living her life like people never make mistakes, messes, or put the silverware in the dishwasher wrong.

Maybe I'll post some pictures of the house after this weekend. Hopefully the before and after are remarkably different.

My Life Is Honey

It never fails that after I post a "woe is me" letter, I get smacked in the face with some reality. Like Sunday, when I went to church and the guest pastor spoke about grumbling less about how life sucks and doing more to suck the sweetness out of those bad times. Then to hit it ever harder, he talked about a woman in the hospital in a third world country, holding her injured daughter and praising God because He's never let her children go hungry for more than a day.

Having never gone hungry for more than a few hours, not to mention NEVER seeing my child hungry and unable to feed him, that's a little hard to ignore. I'm terribly blessed to be able to stay home with Jacob and not be starving in a swamp in Alabama. I had a place to sleep, even when I hate how things are. I have a place to bake cupcakes for my son's birthday, so I'm trying to ignore the fact that CS's mom goes in after me and re-arranges the dishes I put in the dishwasher. My mom bought me a new fleece lined hoodie so I can be warm on these almost fall mornings. Which, WTF, Colorado? Stop it with the FALL mornings. I want my summer back.

So I'm trying to be more positive. To think about the things I do have, instead of what I want. It's hard, at least once a day I want to walk out and never come back. But I try to remember that CS has a job, Jacob is healthy (even if I took him to get shots today and it made him sad, crabby, and weepy). Life isn't easy, but mine is honey.

Life In A Small Town

Tonight, we went to the football game for the old high school I went to freshman year. Granted, the school has a new, shiny building so it's not the exact spot where I once attended games, clad in a jersey of the player I was dating, but still the same name and the blue and gold colors. And it made me want to bemoan my life to one of my friends but I couldn't because I knew she'd just say "you chose it" and I'd have to agree.

When I went with CS to his 10 year reunion at Manhattan's (now Kate's) where I used to work on Wednesday and Saturday (and where I hung out on a nightly basis if we're being honest) the DJ asked me why I was back when I had left with such big plans. Of course, the truth of the matter is that I didn't exactly choose this plan. I mean, I did by choosing to stay with CS and his decision brought us back here. I could have stayed behind in multiple places, everywhere we have gone I want to stay because I get attached. I love being back home, and seeing my mom and my friends here. But I love to leave. After being here too long, I want to go. I've lived here long enough and I'd love nothing more than to pack it all up and go back to Alabama, Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio. Or even somewhere new. I wish we had that option now. But CS's job promises to keep getting better. I wish it would get better faster so we could live on our own and get past this awful stage. But CS can't quit his job because he needs it so we just have to wait for them to follow through on the myriad of promises they have given. It sucks, I hate it. I hate not being able to pay the bills because they won't pay him the amount they told him. But at least he has a job he likes and that he goes to, everyday. Even on a holiday weekend. I hate living where we do and the minute he gets his raise, we are moving to our own house. Where we can all sleep in the same bed together, and the dog can join us. I'm just trying to get through this phase. Hopefully, we move into a phase where things are easier. Where I can get past the fact that I'm living in the same place I have been trying to escape since I was 16. Sometimes, I look at my life and wish I could go back in time and tell myself not to make the same choices. To avoid all the bad things that have happened and make my life easier. Hindsight is a bitch. Part of me has such a hard time with my life because I have spend the last year at home with Jacob. I haven't been making my own money and taking care of myself. I've been relying on CS to do it, and there's a lot of trust in giving over all the things that I was proud of and now it seems like my life is in shambles and I can't put it back together without giving my son up during the day.

I try not to let myself dwell on these things, but after a bad day, sometimes it's hard to forget. But there is always tomorrow, as long as the baby lets me sleep past 6 AM.

Ambushed!

Today, after dinner, CS ditched me and Jacob in the kitchen with his mom and went to watch TV. I didn't know he left for good, or I would have followed him to avoid this little awkward exchange. CS's mom was doing the dishes and she turned around to ask me if I was upset with her. I said no. She said she wasn't sure because I have been very quiet and I don't stay at their house very much. I told her that I had to be at my mom's to watch my dog because he gets destructive and because I'm more comfortable there. I didn't elaborate. I didn't tell the truth.

If you could peek into my head during the times I am here at CS's house, you would see a lot of anger. I'm also angry in my car, or talking about it, and lots of times in-between. I fantasize about getting CS to agree to get married at City Hall, so we can stay in the same room together. Then get an annulment the day we move out. I think about moving all my things out to my mom's house and staying there. Or just crawling into bed with CS some days. These are the things I think about before I fall asleep. These are my lullabies.

No wonder I have little to say when I'm at his house. When I'm upset about something, I don't usually talk about it. But I've already voiced my opinion on this subject and I was shot down. So I have nothing more to say. But it also created an environment when I do not feel compelled to talk to his mom about anything.

I sleep at his house as night, and in the mornings, I pack my things and my baby up and go to my mom's house. Lots of evenings, I put the baby in his PJ's, nurse him, then drive back and put him in his crib. This is how I keep my sanity in and acceptance of this situation. My relationship with CS's mom may never be what is was before we lived with them. I'm almost 26; I do not need to be judged and controlled like a horny teenager. I miss sleeping with CS, having someone to go to bed with and wake up next to him. So yes, I am still upset.

And Back We Go

Quick Update:

I should be packing but since I know Sarah has been trying to get a hold of me, I'll try to update quickly.

We are all moving back to Colorado this week. CS was offered a job in Florence that seems to be a really good opportunity for him. It doesn't pay as much as the job that brought him down here did but it pays well enough for us to get by for a while. So Jacob and I are flying out on Wednesday and CS's dad is flying down to help CS get the U-Haul back to CO. We're both sad to be leaving the South, since it's warm here in wintertime and they have a beach! I'm bummed because I just found a church to go to and I was hopefully going to start making friends. Cute babies are good for things like that. Of course, it will be good to be around my family and the friends I have in Colorado. However, it does place me smack back into the same place I was years ago when I decided to get away and live someplace new. We're also going to live with CS's parents this time around. As far as I know, they are letting us sleep in the same room together, although there was a conversation where his mom wasn't sure. Apparently, we are a bad influence on his sister. I think we all know that separate bedrooms do not keep adults from being intimate so maybe she realized this and decided against two rooms.

However, if the bed is only a twin? Then CS will be sleeping on the couch. There is not enough room for me, Jacob and CS. No way, no how.

So Tired.

We took Jacob to a pediatrician today. I've finally given up on trying to help him with his "digestion issues" or "only pooping once a week and screaming, crying, and bleeding his way through through it." I tried removing bananas, apples, rice, squash, and carrots. I fed him only fruit, green beans, peas, and prunes. I tried Cheerios. I gave him teaspoons of dark karo syrup and tried to use apple juice in a sippy cup. So far nothing has helped him and every week we go through the same routine. Baby starts crying and straining and I rub his belly and pump his legs like he's on a bicycle to help him poop. The pediatrician wrote a prescription for a laxative and I am to give it to him daily until things start working on their own. Which might take weeks to a few months. It's not a quick fix. It's a good thing, that we have some place to start and I certainly don't want to do the other options if the medicine doesn't work out because, lo, we have no health insurance. And the little ten minute visit with the doctor cost us $185. HOLY SHIT PEOPLE. I called a different place this morning and their fee was $110 for "people like us" and I thought that was high. I should have asked when I called them and got an appointment. I should have said "I'm sorry, we can't afford that," when she told me the total. I'm buying groceries with fucking food stamps right now. I cannot afford to have a sick child. I know I should have gone to the county nurse. I just had no idea it could cost so much to see a doctor for ten minutes. Why can they do this? How can they charge someone with no insurance what they'd charge an insurance company who finds ways to write things off. Is this how they make their money? By overcharging the people who can't afford to pay insurance if they aren't part of a group? Even if I did have insurance, I would would still be paying all their charges because I can't afford to pay $250 a month for one child to have a $500 deductible and an 80/20 co-pay. Yes, I should go down to the county and get Medicaid or whatever to cover my baby's doctor's visits. But I don't have a car here yet, so anytime I take the truck to get these kinds of things in order, I am using time that CS needs to go sell his frozen meat and make us money to live. It's such a catch-22. I need my car, but I can't afford to get it here. Meanwhile, I'm going deeper into a hole trying to get everything together with only one car.

So I'm tired. I'm tired of being so broke that I'm actually buying groceries on food stamps. Tired of being stuck in a house all day long while Cs goes out and usually comes home empty handed because the money he does make is going straight back to the truck to pay for the fuel he uses to drive around. I'm tired of looking at my maxed out credit card statements. Tired of bills from doctor's offices saying I'm overdue and may be sent to collections. I'm tired of borrowing money from parents, paying them back, and borrowing again.

On the bright side, Jacob's prescription only cost $4 at Walmart. Also there is a almost perfectly healthy boy at my feet, if we overlook the pooping issues and the fact that he's on a nursing strike and I left my breast pump at home and OMG you have no idea how badly my boobs hurt right now.

This gets better right?

One Is The Loneliest Number

I don't really like weekends anymore. Every Saturday and Sunday morning, when Jacob wakes up and gives me his sleepy grin, I think about how there will be no one to bring him to and we can laugh over his crazy bed climbing before getting up and making cappuccinos. There is no one to go for a walk with or make pancakes for me. I thought I was lonely in Colorado. It's worse now.

CS and I are living different lives. He sleeps till afternoon and goes to bed around 3 or 4 AM. I get up with Jacob and I go to bed shortly after he does. I still sleep alone, or with the baby. Everyday should be like a weekend, but there is no joy here. Jacob won't play with CS unless he takes him out of the room and away from me. Otherwise, he crawls over to me. I suspect he would do this to CS's parents as he always shot me looks of "I need you to play with me" whenever his mom took him from me. But now he can crawl so he goes where he pleases. But it doesn't help that CS is not around for most of the day. How can Jacob know him if he's not around? He loved my mom and didn't fight to get away from her. She could put him to sleep for me. But she was gone a lot when we were there. I think he associates her as a parent, and he doesn't see CS as one. It makes sense, my mom and I are very alike in our play with him. It doesn't help that CS had to leave for over two months.

It's hard being here and knowing what I am missing at home. I've looked into playgroups but I'm afraid to take the truck because CS might decide to get up and go look for a job. Our neighbor's are all older, so there aren't kids running around. The library here is so tiny, they don't have story time. Things might feel differently if I had my car here, I suppose. But we can't pay to get that out until we can pay the bills.

I hate knowing my mom is going to go get JBelle when I can't even convince CS to get out of bed and go look at garage sales for fun. I thought I was coming here to get away from the loneliness. I didn't know it was here, waiting for me all along.

OMFG WHEN WILL IT END?

CS called me this morning to tell me that the shipyard will be withholding his paycheck this week because it's in his contract that they take money for the tools he uses everyday. I'm sure this is to safeguard the fact that if a guy quits, he can walk off with a thousand dollars worth of tools and they never get them back. But, but, but SERIOUSLY? NOW! Like we aren't already living like fucking beggars. Like we didn't already miss a paycheck last week because CS didn't go in while we were there. Like we aren't trying to get a house and move out there in less than three weeks. Why can't they give warning? Not two days in advance, how about a month? Seriously, if I had a phone number for someone in payroll, I would be calling her and ripping her a new one because who does that? People have budgets and they can't just miss out on a paycheck with no warning. Not to mention the fact that they already didn't pay CS for one day due to not knowing he was there and another day because their system crashed and they are "trying to work it out." So there is $600 just waiting around to be put into a paycheck. This is not legal, I'm sure. You can't fuck with wages. This is our livelihood. We need money for bills. It's not like we work because we just love working. Working means money means we can pay for shit to live. HELLO.

And now I'm going to go cancel Jacob's insurance because they don't pay for shit and I keep paying them.

Tooths.

Mah baby is getting a TOOTH. He's only three (almost four) months old! And there is a bottom tooth coming in. I found it yesterday, somehow I decided to rub his gum and I felt it. Today you can see it, just an itty bitty spot of white coming through him gum. I suppose this explains the sudden onset of drooling, all those little outfits soaked with baby spit. What I don't understand is why he has been so easy going. No out of control crying or tantrums. Just the same sweet little boy who gets upset when he gets tired because it's too exciting to sleep. I am so lucky to have such an amazing baby.

I had a meltdown today. Completely lost my composure after talking to CS and I sat on the floor next to Jacob in his bouncy seat and sobbed. When I looked up, he was watching me. Grinning his toothless, gummy smile because Mama is making funny noise. It's really hard to be sad after that. He makes everything so good. Even right now when things are very bad, I am at peace with Jacob. He is the best thing in my life and I cannot regret him. I love every minute of being a stay at home mama to him.

Our future is so uncertain right now and I'm worried about what is going to happen. Everyday I feel like I reach a breaking point, yet I have no courage to talk about it. I'm out of options, tired of fighting, on the verge of apathy. Somedays it's like we are just beating a dead horse to see if we can make it move. I never saw this coming.

Grumpygills

I'm pretty sure that I'm totally against CS's job right now. This is a bad thing for me to express given the fact that we NEED him to have a job or I have to go back to work next month. He cannot quit this job without having a new one to go to immediately. However, I have my reasons.

#1: It takes him away from us.
#2: They don't actually pay that well when he's not away on a job.
#3: He missed his flight because he was called to the jobsite this morning to fix something and when he went to get his boarding pass, the airline charged him $75 that he had to put on MY CARD because the company card didn't work.
#4: He flew into Denver tonight and no one was scheduled to pick him up, nor was a car dropped off for him in advance. So guess who has to go get him? (Not from Denver, I just have to meet him in Colorado Springs because a co-worker is picking him up.)
#5: See above-All Reasons.

I am not aspiring to have buckets full of money like we did in New Mexico when he worked all the time and made a fortune an hour. I don't need a lot of money. It doesn't make me happy. I just save it. Which actually makes me happier than spending it. Anyways. I just want to feel comfortable with what we have. I want a place to live, money to pay the bills and buy the food without worrying that we can't afford that kind of juice or two boxes of cereal. I want to fill up my gas tank and buy a decaf coffee once in a while. I'm not looking to own fancy baby toys or pretty clothes from JCrew. I just don't want to be so damn broke anymore.

Should I?

So I'm making a cake. A cake I cannot eat until tomorrow at noon. I'll go back and edit in the link to the cake. For now, just know that it's from Smitten Kitchen and it's on the second page and you have to go to another website to get there. The batter was HEAVENLY and then I added chocolate chips, so I can just imagine that it's amazing. Pretty simple except for the part when I had to fold in the egg whites because my spatulas are cheap and they were all bendy instead of holding up to the batter. I'm sure it's fine though, the cake has puffed up nicely.

This will be the last mid-week dessert I made until after Thanksgiving break because next week we are only there for two days and I have things to pack! We're driving home on Wednesday and that's ok. I don't really like getting in at 1 AM but it is nice the next day when you have an entire day that's not taken up by things like driving 400 miles. I'm not sure what we are doing for the actual day of Thanksgiving. My mom's hosting dinner. But so is CS's grandparents in La Hunta, Florence, and somewhere else I'm blanking on the name. On of those dinners, I am not allowed to attend because I am a girlfriend, not a wife, and the significant others are not invited. Cool, huh! I'd understand if I wasn't really, really dating CS. Like maybe he just found me the night before at the bar and decided he didn't want to face his family alone. But I'm not a Rent-A-Center girlfriend, I'm the live-in kind. The one who makes sure his bills are paid on time, and puts his money into a savings account, cooks his dinner, folds his laundry, and once I even washed his truck. Needless to say, we aren't going there for Thanksgiving Dinner.

I'm concerned about this though. Because I refuse to spend Thanksgiving away from him. We live together, our lives are combined. But just because we "aren't married" doesn't mean that it's ok for us to have seperate holidays. I don't see the point of this relationship if we aren't going to make an effort to blend our backgrounds into one. Do I want to drive 2 hours to get to another dinner? No. But do I want to spend time with both our families? Yes, of course. We'll have to make it work. And I just hope that there is a way for us to come together. It's about compromise, between CS and I, as well as with our families.

But, man, if we go to both dinners? I am going to be one stuffed chic.

The Other Woman

Once, weeks ago (weeks seem like months, is that just me?) CS was sitting on the couch and I was at the table by my computer. We hadn't been talking, and he goes to ask me something, I forget what. And he says "Hey Kristen...Jess." Then we just looked at each other. "We were just talking about her!" he says, with a tone of instant remorse at the words he just uttered. I kept looking at him, my eyes big and my jaw dropped. "There are a lot worse places you could have said that," is all I say.

In his defense, we had been talking about her. She had called that night, while we wear sitting outside our front door, eating chips and salsa out of the jar. Whenever she calls, without fail, CS looks at his phone...sees her number...sighs...flips it open... and says "Hello?" Like, "I know who this is, but I am extending no effort to make you feel welcome to call me." I told him that that night and we did start a small conversation about her and what happened with them. I don't know all the details, nor do I want to. I know a little bit, but I don't want to bring her and him into our relationship out of simple curiosity. As far as I know, she doesn't call often. She calls for a reason here and there, but those reasons are starting to die out as everything becomes final and their life together is no more.

Sometimes, I wonder if I should ever worry about her getting him back. If marriage bonds really are that strong. You hear stories about exes getting back together, working things out. Honestly, I think it would be impossible for them to go back, to fall in love. But on an especially rough day, it's a little fear in a small corner of my mind. Maybe it's because I'm naive, and I believe that when you say "I do" and you bind yourself to another person, part of you can never escape those bonds. That marriage is the welding of two fleshes, and to separate that, you must cut it away. And if you do, are you ever whole again? Even if we are happy and meant to be together, she will always be the first. I'd be lying if I said that never hurts me.

Ok, Never Mind

Hey! Crisis over! Not that there ever was a crisis, but I was having a slight freak out most of yesterday. And I'm better now. A night with a few bottles of wine on a patio can really, really turn your day around. Thank you, Yellow Tail and my new friend Lace. Just what I needed.

So Sunday night, I went over to CS's house because he had planned to be leaving that night for Lamar to start work the next morning. I showed up, and he was in the garage working on a project for his dad. He told me that he needed to tell me something and that he didn't know how much I already knew about it. It being that he is going through a divorce. This explains why so many people asked him if I was his wife. I simply thought it was a funny to to ask, and blamed it on being drunk. Never did I think that perhaps he was married! I just wondered why they didn't choose girlfriend as the term. Anyways, my ignorance aside, he was married and is now in the middle/end of a divorce. He told me this and then told me that the conversation we had in jest the night before about me going with him to New Mexico wasn't all joke and I was welcome to go with him. (Gosh, this sounds a lot worse than it really is.) There was a lot of other conversation thrown in there but I suppose I can keep some of that to myself.

Yeah, this is crazy and maybe has "RUN AWAY" written all over it. Maybe I will. For now, I'm going to Ohio on the 18th. And I'll keep re-evaluating all of this as I go. What will be, will be. Yes, it's crazy that he wants me to go with him when we just started dating. Could be fun. Could be bad. But it's not everyday that someone offers to simply take care of you. And tell me, if that were to happen to you, or has happened to you, how in the world do you disregard it?

Life's messy. But I like to play.