Delivery Day
Let me tell you how today went for me.
BS (Bear’s Son) went to school. First day. Woohoo! Six weeks is WAY too long. I like the kid … but jeez. Six. Weeks. Is. Long.
Bear went to some work thing. A work thing that ended up being more of a social thing, which I’m a bit pissed off about, I must admit.
I got up and put some makeup on. It was the first time in three weeks. I had a bowl of cereal. It’s the first time I’ve been up before 11:30 am in about 3 weeks. It’s the first time I’ve eaten breakfast in months. Maybe even years.
I cleaned up our tiny apartment that’s far too small for the three of us so that I could set up some video stuff. I need to do some stuff with videos for work. I hate it. I closed all the windows so there was no outside noise. I did my hair. I found a super cute outfit, and I put even more makeup on so that my face looked super cute too. I used the last of three concealer tubes. I added concealer to my shopping list and then marked it as urgent.
I put the kettle on and poured myself a glass of Diet Coke. I saw a delivery guy walk past my back window, carrying a 4-foot by 4-foot square box. That’s for Bear. He ordered a canvas. I throw my coat on, hoping the delivery guy wouldn’t think I was wearing porno-stye make up for his benefit and headed right outside.
The delivery guy disappeared.
Wut? Where’d he go?
I went back into the flat, stroked my cat (not a euphemism) and looked out the front window. I watched the delivery guy crossing the road directly opposite my front door, throw something in the back of his van, and then get in the driver’s seat. I tried to run out after him before he drove off, but he was too speedy for me. I’m a dawdler.
Fucks sake. Now I need to call the delivery folk because Bear needed that canvas today. That’s why I waited in all day for it. Not that I needed a reason to stay home, of course, but having the entire day to myself … Well, there were things I wanted to do. There were things I could have done.
I called them, spoke to a nice man who assured me someone would call me back in 15 to 20 minutes, after keeping me on hold for 20 minutes, after also arguing with me for 20 minutes.
“Your parcel has been delivered to you, madam.”
“Well, clearly it hasn’t. I’m sat in my house and the parcel isn’t. I’m not sure where your delivery driver delivered the parcel to, but it most definitely was not my address. I’m sat in my address. I have a doorbell. In fact, my doorbell is the only one on the front door.”
“It says here your parcel has been delivered to your residential address, madam.”
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
I hung up the phone, rolled a joint (because I don’t know what else to do at this point), and then waited at my desk. I waited for exactly half an hour, drinking my tea, staring at my phone and smoking my spliff, and I realised I probably wasn’t going to get that phone call back from the delivery folk.
I also realised that BS would be home from school in about 45 minutes time and I now didn’t have enough time to record the videos I needed to. Bollocks.
Sod it, I’ll set everything up and tell him to be quiet when he gets in. It’s his first day back to school after six weeks. Hopefully, he’ll need a nap or something.
I couldn’t find the lead for my camera. EVERYTHING else was set up. I had cute hair. I had a cute outfit on. Bear and I had sex last night. I wore my cute white negligee. I sat on his face. I felt sassy. I felt confident enough to show my face on camera. Where’s the fucking lead? The lights are up and turned on. The lightbox is set. The memory cards are in a line, as are the things I need for the recordings. Where’s the fucking lead?
I sat on my desk chair and cried solidly for 15 minutes, listening to Kesha’s “Praying” on repeat because I felt sorry for myself and I lost all fucks to give. And then I did 2 hours of housework which Bear didn’t notice when he came home. Late. Empty-handed. No dinner at 8:30 pm. He went back out to get dinner, which was nice, but he didn’t even open the canvas that I’d waited all day for, and then chased around after. It’s still sat in the hallway.
He was grumpy the entire evening. He snapped at me. He asked weird questions and then repeatedly asked me what was wrong. I got snappier and snappier as the evening went on, and he just kept on pushing those buttons. He was tired, you see. He’d been travelling all day. He didn’t give two fucks about my day. Or, at least, he didn’t seem to. I tried to tell him the story of how I chased a delivery guy around and spent forever on the phone calling them and how I didn’t manage to get my videos done and I couldn’t find my lead … but he kept interrupting me. I managed to get the story out in drips and drabs, about 4 or 5 of them, getting increasingly more annoyed each time.
I didn’t dare bring up the fact that I think he might have moved my lead — my NECESSARY lead — during his lost-keys frenzy the other day. He’d bite my head off. But secretly I was mad at him. Really mad at him. This is turning into the norm — me not being able to do stuff because he doesn’t go out when he says he will, or something else comes up, or something gets moved and then I can’t find it when I need it. This place is too small for the three of us. Four if you include the cat.
The evening continued and it seemed that I’d managed to bring him out of his grumpy slump. He’d made a few references to cheating, but then reassured me he *wasn’t* concerned about me being without him all day. At 01:30 am, he told me he was thinking of going to bed in about “half an hour”. I told him that I wasn’t ready just yet, but if he gave it half an hour, I would more than likely be ready. Exactly 8 minutes after that conversation he told me he would have a wank, seeing as I’d had one earlier on that day, and then got up and walked off into the bedroom.
Wut?
On a day when I could really have just done with a cuddle, all he could think about was sex. On a day when I got nothing done because of the delivery guy and that fucking canvas, and then the lost lead, and the waiting for the delivery people to call back, and then the noisy neighbour, the cat screaming out because she was in heat, the kid coming home, and then him coming home … He just wanted to snap at me and be curt. And this is happening every time. I’m finding it harder and harder to do my job, and on the days when I try to lock myself away in a room somewhere to just get things done, he gets paranoid and pops his head in every five minutes, asking me what’s wrong. It’s at times like this that I wish I didn’t work from home. Or that his work was busier. Sometimes the balance is right. Right now is not one of those times.
And the question that I can’t bring myself to ask out loud is this …
What happens if he hasn’t got dementia? What happens if this is life? If he’s just like this sometimes? What happens if they don’t determine he needs new meds, or his mental health assessment goes better than we think it might? This is going to be my life. One problem after another. One fight after another. One whirlwind of a bad mood after another.
Or maybe this is just because of the shit going on right now? We’re always waiting for one appointment or another, or some set of results. I’m fully aware of how stressful that is because it’s a life I lived twice. First with the bowel cancer scare, and again with the cervical cancer scare. I know he’s scared. I just wish he’d find better coping mechanisms. I can see the smile in his eyes during those moments when we’re not worrying about money or dementia or assessments or BS’s fucking mother, and it’s real. A real smile. It’s that guy I love. Good Bear. But then all that other stuff happens again.
And BS’s mother … Let’s not open that box right now. She’s popping up. Just another problem. It’s a small one right now, but you know that seed is gonna grow and grow and grow.
Anyway, that’s how my day went. I’m so behind on work all the time. It would just be super epic if things went my way just for one day. Like, just enough time to get a head start on my to-do list.
In other news, I found my NSSITC phone. I’ve peeked on Twitter. I’m not brave enough to respond to people yet. I am reading your messages though. And I love you all for your love. I’m just in a really odd place right now. Maybe I’m depressed? I don’t know what I am. I’m tired though, I can tell you that. It’s bedtime for me.
Featured image by bluebudgie from Pixabay
feel better *hugs*
Thank you, I’m workin’ on it! xo
That’s the thing though isn’t it? It’s never about their diagnosis, not really. It’s about what you will tolerate. What you believe you are worth, deep down inside.
I was once thrown across the room by a woman with schizophrenia. When she was back to herself, she was the meekest person you could ever meet. And the most apologetic. It doesn’t sound like your relationship is like this. This sounds like this is him well.