Peering into the chasm
Boy! I’m struggling today.
Life is good, right? So why am I feeling so very uneasy and blue? The ol’ inner dialog is very bitchy and argumentative. No matter which side of the argument I pick another voice says “Yeah, but…”
It’s enough to make a person want to give up cleaning and lay down and take a nap. After a big big scotch.
I’ll try dumping it out here, first. See if that helps sort things out. Before trying oblivion.
New job starts tomorrow
Pros
- Good salary
- Benefits
- Good people
- They want me there and appreciate what I bring to the table.
- I’ll work from home most of the time (at least until November)
- I’m good at it
- I can leave it at the office
Cons
- Less control over my time. I’ll HAVE to put in 40+ every week.
- I don’t know today, which days I’ll be working at home.
- May not be able to stop working at 3:30 to drive up to Mr. Hockey when I want to.
- It’s corporate…not what I wanted or expected to be doing at this point
- There’s evidence that not is all rosy (read: IT guys are freaks with their heads up their asses about training and how long it takes to develop and deliver…basically the same as every other IT department on earth.)
School Starts tomorrow for the boys
Pros
- They will have to get into a routine
- School is good for them
- I don’t have to worry about where they are or what they’re doing while I’m at the office.
- They’re going to be crabby for the first two weeks until they get their bio-schedules reconfigured
Cons
- Less time to get done the same about of around the house
- Less time for fun stuff
- I’ll need to be home at 10pm to make sure they’re going to bed (no more late week-nights out)
Mr. Hockey
Pros
- Aside from the obvious enjoyment I get from spending time with him and talking and emailing with him….
- He created and proposed a schedule to his X that would provide for us to have some weekend time
- He is proving while he does that that he is trying to do what is best for his kids (top priority) while trying to get his social needs met too.
- He is expressing a changing attitude toward his interactions with his X based on some of the things he’s learned with/from me and our conversations (i.e. that her ‘prickliness’ sounded to me like defensiveness and he realized he had always thought it was aggression/antagonism towards him.) I chalk this up to healing on his part.
- She didn’t go for it exactly and it looks like there’ll be little weekend time.
- We are on the same page regarding whether it’s time to meet children (it’s not.)
- He wants to come here sometimes, too. And not just have it be me traveling out there.
Cons
- Even on the weekends and evenings she has the kids, he often has hockey coaching duty with his son.
- Weeknight dates, while still theoretically possible, are going to be limited to a couple of hours, at best per week.
- Mr. Hockey has offered to come here (note this is also listed in Pros.) This makes me nervous, knowing X’s unpredictability around when he brings the boys home; sometimes it’s after 10, sometimes earlier. This gets even trickier on weekends when DS1 has been known to walk to the house without notice.
None of it is really bad, like cancer or death or fire. But it all adds up to making me feel like I’m peering over the edge of the chasm at a trail I’m supposed to be taking. And I can’t tell if this trail follows the bottom of the gorge again. And that, in and of itself, scares the hell out of me.
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
-
running 2008
stories from vacation 2006
#1 Amazing thing about this new call 2006
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
-
running 2008
stories from vacation 2006
#1 Amazing thing about this new call 2006
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
-
running 2008
stories from vacation 2006
#1 Amazing thing about this new call 2006
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm
It wouldn’t be the worst thing if your son came home and met Mr. Hockey would it? It may be too early to do it formally, but all the tiptoeing around seems exhausting.
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Churlita,
No, as long as he wasn’t walking in on his mom and some guy making out….or more.
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I like the way you organized it into pros and cons. I like providing some amount of structure to things, it makes me feel safer.
Maybe you are building the tension up on yourself though, thinking too much about these things. It’s sounds like you’ve done what you can do with the involvement of the other people. Now you just need to be patient and let things go through their process.
I does suck though! If you’re like me, then Patience is not one of your stronger attributes.
I love the banner pic by the way!
-P
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Hey Proxima,
Thanks! Glad you like the banner. I’m pretty proud of that pic.
And to answer your question…no, Patience is not a particularly strong suit for me.
I guess another opportunity to practice getting better at it….
It’s one of the ironic little jokes that I named this blog “This Journey” and talk all about how it’s not the destination, blah blah. And also the “not fainthearted” bit.
Both are efforts to remind myself, not claims of detachment already achieved.
September 4th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
there’s only one thing to do, change the locks so he has to ring the doorbell before he enters.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
1) I love that he proposed to exwife new schedule to give you time together on the weekends. My new guy did the same thing…he didnt propose, but he manipulated to get back on his usual schedule, which had been changed over the summer due to vacations and made sure to get us on the same schedule with our kids/without our kids. It feels wonderful.
2) as for DS1 walking in at any time, can you change the locks? Lock the door? install a doorbell?