Tuesday 1 December 2015

stalled again

I have so much to do but need to think things out.  You see, Nerdboy asked me to marry him this summer.  The ring was ordered in August, and I waited and it was never presented to me.  and he stopped talking about wedding plans.  I felt like I imagined the whole thing.
Once I said so- 'Where is my ring?  I must have dreamt this.'  He just said nothing.
During this whole fall, I have been battling a horrible lung infection, always coughing.  I spent a lot of money on medication, and missed a lot of work (and I don't get paid sick days)  It cost me about $1000 I figure.  Plus I actually had two big freelance projects, both still not finished because I've been too tired to work on them.
So, stress.
And Nerdboy has been both amazing, and unsympathetic.  He has made me soup, and tea, and rubbed my back, but he also thinks I should work through the illness.  The cough has come in three waves, I'll have a week where it gets almost better, but I can feel the signs of it coming back and I walk around saying 'FUCK FUCK FUCK I CAN'T STILL BE SICK'.  Nerdboy would say stuff like, 'It's just a cough.'  It is NOT JUST A COUGH.  I cough until I wheeze, sometimes until I throw up.

Despite being sick for over three months, I have my own business of art tutoring, six days a week, and I started a series of green living workshops, which I do for free.

One Saturday morning about a month ago, I had been feeling better, but felt a burning sore throat- Not again!  I started crying in bed.  I was cuddling Nerdboy and I said, 'I'm not doing okay'.  Saturday is my worst work day, I have three teaching gigs and I run all over the city for five hours of work.  I had been trying to push all my projects forward, and just didn't want to have to be strong any more.  Nerdboy let me lie on his shoulder but he didn't say anything, didn't squeeze me tight.  I felt so rejected, I rolled over to the wall and went into foetal position and just lost it, sobbed heavily.  He lay there beside me and didn't speak or move.
He shuts down when I cry.
And I choked out some words- Nerdboy.   How do you feel when I cry.
No answer.
Are you mad at me?
No.
It feels like you're mad.
I was holding you.  You rolled away.
I felt rejected

And so it went, I do all the emotional work through my tears, I just have to say how I'm feeling until he finds something he can respond to and then he's back to being wonderful.  He unfreezes.  It's bizarre.  He gathers me up in his arms, tells me jokes, lets me blubber, is human again.

Somewhere in all this I spit it out- Are we engaged?

heavy sigh from him:  I have the ring and I put it aside for now.  You had a plan to get into (another field of work) and you haven't done anything.

I can't remember what he said, but the gist of it is that I need a job before he'll marry me.  Well, that's the message I got.  He did say, Hey I'm still here.  We're together.

And I haven't dealt with that at all.
Honestly, at the tear-soaked time, I accepted his answer.  At least I wasn't making up the whole proposal thing.  Relationships seem to get into a weird logic of their own.  My friends talk about stuff that I wouldn't put up with, but look at what I do accept in mine and Nerdboy's!
The next day I rethought it and was pissed!  So, what is the minimum income I need to hit to be your partner?

But, I can also see his side.  We've been together more than two years.  I don't have my shit together.  I always owe him money (but I do pay my share.)  We don't even dream of a bigger apartment, or travel.  I have a crying breakdown every two months from the work situations I've gotten into.  (I've lost or left 4 jobs in two years, including one that was a big legal fight).  I don't want him to have to work a boring job, and do all the cooking, while I follow my dreams and have big drama and small success, at his expense.
I'm not happy in working in the arts the way I am.  He suggested (other field) as a way to use my skills in a more stable environment, even if the end product is not really high on artistic merit.

it hasn't been talked about since.  We are loving to each other, day to day life is the same.  But I want a deep talk about the future and what he needs from me, and what I need from him.  Being engaged was fun at first, now it's a mess.




Tuesday 4 August 2015

Engaged

I don't know if anybody still reads this blog but here goes.

Nerdboy asked me to marry him and I said yes.
It wasn't much of a proposal.  We were sitting on the couch watching Big Bang Theory, I was slightly grumpy at him because two characters in the show were fighting and he had taken the male character's side, and I the woman's.  There was silence.  I was doodling or something.  He looked at me and said 'will you marry me?'  I said 'yes' immediately and then looked at him and he asked me again and I said, yes, yes!
Then he said, you drive me nuts but I love you love you love you.

So, next summer we will be married in a private ceremony, possibly while travelling, and then have a reception and surprise everybody.

It feels nice.


Tuesday 28 April 2015

update

More of the same, really.

Job.  I work at a big box hardware store.  It's actually not bad.  Did a short stint at big-box craft store, hated it.  The prices are marked up 800%-1000% of what they paid for it, so when customers talked to me I didn't want to help them-I wanted to warn them.
So I'm doing a mix of the hardware store and teaching art.  I can just squeak by.  It's not a long term solution.

Art:  not sure what to do next.  I've been quite busy dealing with a bunch of Life Stuff.

The Labour Dispute:  Took a settlement and closed my complaint.  They were horrible to deal with. Hooray for burnt bridges.

Family:  My brother is moving his brood to Europe.  It might be years before I see those kids again. This has not sunk in.   An uncle has just died and my grandfather is very sick.  My mother is acting strange.

Nerdboy:  He had a situation at work that was making him stressed.  This week he'll decide if he accepts another job offer or stays at his current company (of ten years).  I think he should start fresh, but it means he loses some benefits.   Mostly he will be stressed out by learning a new routine, new group of people, finding his place.  New jobs are difficult for most people, Nerdboy and I seem especially overwhelmed by it.  (I just have to do it all the time so I'm used to it.)

The problem was that while he's been dealing with this work thing, he's retreated a bit.  He doesn't tell me about what's going on because 'talking about it makes him relive the anger'.  But it affects our economic situation so I think I have to be in the loop.  And he stopped going to a class he was taking, he played more computer games, and....he lost his libido.  We had sex twice in April.

And not having sex makes me weepy and insecure.  We agreed to be monogamous, and he's the only
 person I've had sex with (ok, I did sexual things with Walrus.  However you want to count that)
So I kinda want to explore this sex thing for the first time in my life, and I'm the more demanding of us two.  But, I won't initiate it aggressively.  I make hints, he doesn't take up the offer and I'm too hurt to put myself out there in a big way.

One night this month we were going to watch a movie at home.  He was on the computer.  I set up the movie, and got under a blanket on the couch completely naked.  I thought this was going to be cute.

He kept playing computer and I called to him.  He went into the kitchen and made a sandwich and came and sat down at the end of the couch.  I was trapped under the blanket, now feeling like an idiot.  He peeked under the blanket and patted my behind affectionately but just kept eating his sandwich.

This article is about having a happier marriage by being willing to be there for your partner's needs.  That is, the person with the lower sex drive should try to have sex even when they don't want to.  But, does the need to be touched outweigh the need not to be touched?  Still, I agree sex should be a compromise, since everything else in the relationship is.  Nerdboy thinks it should never be forced or planned.  But that translates into we have sex when he wants to, and I'm always a little anxious wondering when it will happen.

I was really sex crazy and I`ve calmed down quite a bit, but I`m still hoping for once or twice a week.  I`ve been having trouble with pain during entry again, and even though I make a lot of excited noises, it isn`t actually very pleasurable for me.  I like the feeling of being desired, I like being touched, but penetration is a disappointment.  I know orgasm comes from clit stimulation but I`ve never been able to get that to work either.

And I don`t like his kisses.  He won`t use his tongue.  We just press our mouths together, I`m not sure what is supposed to happen.  Sometimes it even hurts from friction. I don`t know how to fix this.  I`ve only kissed one other person and half his mouth is paralysed, but it was still more fun.

I only use this space to complain about Nerdboy- he does have good qualities and supports me in so many ways .  It`s the usual complaint, things are okay, but I`m wanting more.



Tuesday 13 January 2015

inertia

here is where things are at.
I think I mentioned that there was conflict at one of my jobs- it's now a full out labour dispute and I have no idea what will happen next.  For the meantime, I'm hardly working.  I was laid off my retail job on Boxing Day.  I have very little source of income for this month.

It's hard to do anything when you don't have money coming in.  I should be working on promoting myself for freelance work, but I need to invest a little money to do that...not to mention I need stability and routine in order to make my best art.

How is this possible?  I have six years of school.  I'm smart and hardworking.  But I graduated from that program I hated almost THREE years ago and I haven't even found steady part time work.

And Nerdboy said, "I hate to say this, but your clothes are from the thrift store.  They don't look professional."

And I was hurt, not because I felt he was being insulting, but in the way that having a bubble burst hurts.  I was pretending I looked okay, ignoring the shabbiness of my clothes, but I know they're not doing me any favours.

But, I really can't do anything about it right now unless someone lends me money.

Also I am really sick with a bad cough that's lasted over two weeks.  I am trying to get things done but want just to rest....I feel depression creeping up on me and am doing my best to fight it.

Nerdboy had to work nights last week and our apartment is so small, he asked me to vacate during the day when he slept.  So I was in the studio a lot.  I did make dates with two friends.  Nerdboy didn't sleep as much as he thought he would, so sometimes we were together during the day or evening.

I hated sleeping alone.  I did miss him.
By the end of the week I was hoping we'd have sex, but he was tired and I was sick and it didn't seem in the cards.  Saturday night we watched 'Her' by Spike Jonze and I found myself sobbing.  Nerdboy had commented that he would become addicted to an operating system that was customized to respond to him.  And sure, I think he would too and so would a lot of people.  But it hurt a little.
The way the characters talk to each other was so intimate, the computer said the most perfect things.  I couldn't explain why I was upset...I wanted to be that perfect a girlfriend, I wanted to stay up all night sharing secrets with someone.  Even the fact that the computer is discovering herself, and love and sex felt like things I'd gone through.

Anyways, Nerdboy cuddled me and I tried to explain.  Again, he said little.  I told him again I want him to share stuff with me.  He said, I don't know what you expect me to say.  Most of what is in my head is boring.
And later I thought, 'well work on not being boring!  Cultivate an inner life.'
He's had a turbulent past, he used to make art and write poetry.  Now it seems like it's all turned off.  Maybe to protect himself?  Or maybe this is what happens when you grow up, and move past the dramatics of youth, and I'm just way behind schedule.

Some little grievances with each other came out...A few months earlier, I kept pestering him about what he wanted in bed, and when he told me, I really didn't want to do it.  So that hasn't been dealt with, but I don't see myself ever being into that.  He mentioned that he was hurt that I hadn't responded to that.
And I asked him if we had a good relationship and he hesitated and said, 'It's okay.  We have our ups and downs.'
Granted, me crying and saying we never talked wasn't a good time to said we had a great relationship, but.... huh.

Also this week, one of my friend dates was with Instafriend and she confided in me that she'd gone out to lunch with an ex this summer, and he'd kissed her.  She hadn't told her husband, who is very much a one-woman man.  Instafriend isn't even sure she believes in monogamy.  She said she and her husband were a great pair, he steadied her, they supported each other, but it never was and never will be a passionate relationship.  They don't want the same things sexually, she's the instigator in that regard, but it was a tradeoff for the long term.  Still, a passionate kiss from an ex was enough to make her long for more, to feel attractive, to feel wanted.

I didn't tell her how much her story affected me.

I'm not lying when I tell Nerdboy I love him.  But I have romantic ideas about falling in love that just didn't happen for me and I'm longing for passionate kisses and pillow talk and deep connections.

What happens when one person is doing a lot of growing and the other is stuck in a rut?

the rest of my life is so unstable right now and I like how we live together...i just want more.  more from him, more from me.