Of course, renovations are stressful. Not only is there a lot of money on the line, but there are so many decisions and a great deal of varying levels of skilled labor to deal with. Then, there’s the time demands, the loss of any semblance of a routine, and (in this case) the loss of a bedroom and closet access. It’s enough to tax even the most patient, together, organized person who has plans and subplans and time up the wazoo. However, despite the fact that I am extremely patient when dealing with the disabled (or merely stupid) and I have everything so organized it’s gone ridiculously smoothly even when we’ve hit bumps in the road, I also have fibromyalgia.

FM’s something I’m not good at advocating about; I am more likely to just try to tough things out whenever possible, especially when the only other option is verbally laying into someone repeatedly. Unfortunately, my husband avoids confrontation whenever possible, sees the renovation as My Project and therefore something he just puts up with, does not always see how my FM is being inflamed by what is happening, and has not always been of the “here, let me say or do something so you are as un- uncomfortable as possible” frame of mind. He’s more of the tough-it-out, you-brought-this-on-yourself, if-you-need-to-embarrass-me-by-using-a-cane-you-shouldn’t-go-out mentality. And I can’t have my mommy call his mommy. In fact, I didn’t have the subcontractor’s (I’m sorry, “project manager”) cell number until Wednesday, when he called me at 9:45 to say he was running a little late and would be here by 10:30-11, which wound up being 11:45.

But tonight, as he went home yet again saying “all I have left is…” (which was what he said Tuesday morning, claiming he’d be done by the end of the day), I just lost it and took my carefully organized box of “last details” to innumerate them all with him and made it clear that I expected him to be here during the day. That was as harsh as I got. He left. I’ll see him bright and early (”earlier than the usual time”… so, maybe not long after 9?) tomorrow and make it clear that he needs to physically stay here until the job’s complete because I need to be able to have plenty of time to clean the bedroom while it’s still light out. I’ve also sent an email to his boss to let him know that that’s the expectation.

The issue is really how the stress interacts with my fibromyalgia. I am hypervigilant during the hours they are expected to arrive/return as well as during the time they are here. I wake at 8 and rush to get dressed and ready. I’m lucky if they’re here by 9:30. They often leave for supplies, men, etc. (a lot of etcetera), as well as meals. But after 4 they work until somewhere between 6 and 11pm, with only 1 or 2 trips out. However, that gives me 12 hours of vigilance (unless I collapse into a brief nap that usually just leaves me feeling nauseous). Add to that the fact that I’m not in my own bed and there are no quiet corners to hide in, and I might as well be working for all the pain I’m in. Plus, I don’t feel comfortable leaving the house except for an emergency (out of a vital Rx or a very necessary doctor’s appt) and as we get closer to the end, they need immediate input (and reminders that what he named isn’t close to all that needs to be done, even if it all fits into a small box) often enough that I’m kept on my toes. Also, as the subcontractor/PM said that he’s not coming back once he’s done unless there’s a case of gross negligence, I check up on the project often enough that I caught the mistake of the backwards shower door (so the special water-beads-up coating was on the outside of the shower) today.

If my husband could have played the bad guy or even just hadn’t had a tough-it-out/we-knew-what-we-were-getting-into approach, I might have said something to minimize the effect this is all having on my body. But, then again, I could have mentioned that the longer days (a direct result of their less-than-determined daytime work) was having a negative impact on my pain index, or even that having the distraction of his calm company playing a game or going out for an hour would help, especially given how little I saw him this weekend… But, instead, couple’s therapy Monday night and the Sabres’ playoff game Wednesday night each magnified my stress and pain exponentially, and Peter’s refusal to commiserate with me or even listen to me bitch has really driven me crazy. But, again, I could have said something. Even exploding about it is better for me than holding it in.

But then, even 13.5 years later, I’m still the girl who went down below 95lbs and up to a near-toxic level of medication because I wouldn’t let my weakness discommode anyone by complaining about the lack of effects or the overabundance of side-effects (such as panic attacks, school phobia, and a marked increase in my depression and suicidal thoughts). I just said that yes, I do want to get better and will do my best to try to tolerate a higher dosage.

Tomorrow morning, though, I have a facial I’d rescheduled from Wednesday evening that I refuse to cancel (even if it makes my face look worse, I should heal in a week’s time), and Saturday is my body-glow-and-wrap. These should be relaxing, moisturizing, slough off dead skin, and include at least some scalp massage. And, once we’ve left for Cali, I can relax during the day on Thursday and Friday of our vacation next week (family stress starting Friday night, despite my awareness that it is all in my own head, will negate the relaxation factor of any breaks I take the remainder of the time).

Ahhhhhhhh… I feel better now that I’ve gotten this all down/out. I know I can’t control people and I really don’t want to be a bitch or OCD, but I also have feelings I need to get out and if I dump them on Peter, he feels responsible in some way or somehow I’m not doing the mature adult thing of sucking it up and dealing with the consequences of my choice to renovate the bathroom. Maybe now, I’ll be able to fall asleep

By the way, the bathroom does look gorgeous and luxurious, despite its tiny size.

Well, there are three pains keeping me awake right now, yet again.

Number 3: I got my first cavities in my last teeth. In other words, my wisdom teeth are so far back in my mouth that it can be painful to brush them and I wound up with a cavity in two of them (upper right and lower left). I’ve never had a cavity before, so I’m scared, even though they say it’s no big deal and just small surface cavities… I know fillings crack, fall out, the tooth can rot behind the filling and it may need to be redrilled, and I know I’ll continue to have problems with my wisdom teeth because they’re tiny, craggy, and really really far back. But the dentist refuses to pull them as requested and instead is filling them. Ugh.

Number 2: Money. I just spent $5000 between my dentist, old bills from my hospitalization (they sent 12 bills for different days, but the same amount, as well as 8 additional bills and I misunderstood and only paid 1), and car insurance. Our master bath needs to be fixed. We need to keep eating and living in our home and doctors and meds keep costing money. I’m trying not to worry – money from my grandmother will cover that $5000 – but… well, I’m trying not to worry.

Number 1: Physical Pain. Yet again, I can’t sleep because I’m in too much pain. Heat is too overwhelming for the upper back and vicodin wore off. I think it’ll be 1 more vicodin and a few lidocaine patches so I can go back to sleep. Tomorrow, I may just stretch at home and get what sleep I can and wake at noon for my various appointments. I worry that I’ll have to clean up the guest room enough so that I can use it on days when it hurts to think that my motions are limited or I might get any physical pressure on any body part due to pillows, cats, or a stray, lovingly cuddly limb. <sigh>

This is really screwing with my attempts to achieve better sleep hygiene.

Luckily, I’m exhausted and nearly ready to apply that lidocaine, take a vicodin, and curl into bed with my hubby and kitties.

I have come to realize that one of the largest issues with harmoniously living together and cleaning up both the house and my car is dealing with “my room.” You see, the townhome we own has 4 bedrooms: one is the master bedroom, one is the guest/cats’ room, one is Peter’s man-cave, and the fourth is my room, an office/reflection room which was to hold all my toys and educational materials and give me somewhere to sit and quietly read. The feminine version of a man-cave.

In the summer of 2008, I cleaned it up and organized it and began to use it again. But once I got a full-time job doing curriculum work, it once again became a dumping ground.

I’ve been finding quite often that I wish I could have somewhere to go and read, or just remove myself from the living room but not hang out in the bedroom (where I’d inevitably fall asleep). Furthermore, because I don’t have a room of my own to go to, Peter’s activities seem to be cramped by my taking over the living room.

Although I could probably sit in the chair by the window in my room, entering the room and maneuvering around in it is quite hazardous to my health. It’s not that it would take more than a couple of hours to clear up, but then I have more stuff that needs to go in, and a lot of it is on-the-floor work, and it does involve moving some heavy stuff. Also, some things need decisions to be made about them, and some things need to be stored (else I’ll need another bookcase). Then there are the things in my car and in the kitchen, all of which would need to be gone through and possibly would belong in my room. Perhaps I can have a bookcase and storage of some sort in the rec room in the basement, where things could go without being “dumped” there.

Regardless, I cannot physically do this on my own. In fact, in order to remove the table from my room and bring it downstairs (which I’d hoped the burly 1-800-GOT-JUNK would do, along with moving the romance novels and bookcases into the basement, when we decided on a date and I properly prepared for it… but the next day it was sprung upon me with no notice, and I just occasionally hope that this part of my walker or that large gold-framed mirror were not taken).

I find myself looking at various rooms and considering tasks, but discarding them because (1) too much physical labor is involved, (2) I can’t do it alone, or (3) I worry a large part of the task would involve putting items in a room that can’t fit anything.

So, I’m going to selfishly ignore the kitchen and our bedroom and the guest room and everything else (just trying to maintain the living room) and focus on doing a tiny bit in my room each day. I assume that, once I’ve organized to a certain point, Peter will help me out if I can say definitively and concisely what should be moved elsewhere (with a plan for storing/organizing it), what can be thrown out or donated, and what I need help putting away.

However, I’m on my own with going through it. My husband won’t help me, no matter how I ask. My mother will only help by hiring help – I begged her several times in the summer and fall to come help me, but she was overwhelmed by my brother’s move and the holidays and now just either offers to hire someone or argues about my husband not helping and has even asked me to help her go through my grandmother’s stuff. Oddly enough, my older sister is the only person I can think of who might be able and willing to pick up and come down and help… in fact, my car would probably wind up empty & clean, but it would probably all wind up in the basement, and I don’t know if she’d be able to help me sort my stuff or understand saving this item or that book…  but I am definitely keeping her in mind if it’s March and I still don’t have an empty car.

In any event, I’m focusing on my stuff and my room and the rest can just wait. After all, once my room is in order, I can decide what to do with other items (although now I’m definitely thinking a giant bookcase in the rec room with inexpensive cubby-bins would be awesome). This also will give me something to focus on that doesn’t get edited depending on whether we’re moving this summer or next.

I’m off to Amazon.com now to research inexpensive big bookcases and cubbies.

Most women don’t worry about becoming a Stepford Wife. Then again, most women have never been in a loving, functional relationship and endured several candid discussions with concerned peers or supervisors about how they really aren’t being abused in any way.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I grew up in a town where girls had to stand up to their parents and peers and announce they were not going to college to get an MRS degree (i.e. – to catch a husband). However, most of my difficulty finding a balance falls closer to home.

My mother may be a neuropsychologist, but she hasn’t practiced for 30 years. She focused on her children and her husband. As such, she tended to do some little things the way my father preferred, if he showed a preference.

Furthermore, my mother was raised by her mother and didn’t fully shake everything her mother deeply believed, nor did I (since she visited every other weekend, for my entire childhood). I may not have mentioned this before, but my maternal grandmother had a conviction that men were to be served by women, they were to be feared or revered, but always above us. It didn’t really hit me until I was old enough to notice more quiet dynamics within a household, which also coincided with my mother having my baby brother. Suddenly, I was not the spectacular darling I once had been, but (when he was around) a spectacular tool to help her serve my brother. She loved me; she adored him. At the funeral, we joked that she would have been horrified if she’d been there, that my brother was forced to shave, choose a clean slightly-itchy black sweater, and go alone to BUY a pair of pants – she’d have said he could wear anything he was comfortable in, like what he wore the days before: his 3-week-dirty jeans and warn-out shirt were wonderful and his stubble manly.   She would sit on the floor or stand, so a man could have a chair. She would flutter around the room trying to divine their needs for food and beverage (or anything else) before they even thought of it themselves. All this despite having 3 brothers.

So I grew up with this hiding in my head, waiting for just the right man to bring the crazy out. My husband wound up being just that man. I guess it was the only way I knew for a woman to show affection for a man without hanging all over him… or it was my idea of being a good mate. It was a bit visible to others when we were in college, but it really came out when I came to live with Peter, immediately after graduating from college. In a new city far from home, my whole world became graduate school, our two tiny siamese kittens, and Peter. So I came to discover what he preferred and how he preferred it and did my best to anticipate his needs. I felt like a failure when I did not deliver and forgot something when grocery shopping or didn’t immediately hand him the remote or didn’t drive as he would have driven (I quickly decided it was easier to have him drive, which helps tame his road rage). When I started student-teaching, and would suddenly rush to leave and bring work home (due to my perfectionist ways) because “he doesn’t like it if I’m not there to greet him,” people began to worry that I was being abused. It’s hilarious because the worst thing he might do is get grumpy, but the abuse was all me-on-me in my pursuit to meet unvoiced desires and be the perfect pseudo-wife.

Don’t get me wrong – this didn’t extend to cleaning the house obsessively (or at all) and wearing an apron. It was just all in little things to make his life easier so that he would be happier, because  I loved him.

When I work, I become very student-centered and stop coming home on-time or grocery shopping or being willing to make love on a school night (unless there’s plenty of time for me to get a good night’s sleep and I was planning on taking a shower the next morning anyways). That will have to change too, because if I could sleep in my classroom I might not have come home some nights. When I am in pain, I do nothing. I don’t get up to greet him, I don’t cook, I don’t shop, I’m hesitant to be intimate…

But right now, I’m back in my obsessive need-meeting mode. I want Peter to be happy and to be happy with me. There is so much I need to make up for and so much stress and strain on him right now. I’m going to try to temper that, but I don’t know whether I should or how much or in what ways. But I guess it’s more the mindset I should cool down than the actual actions. Making your husband happy is good. Wanting to make your husband happy is good. Self-flagellation after not meeting an unspoken desire is not acceptable. Physically cringing and having nauseating fear over in any way adding to (or not resolving) whatever is making or may make your husband angry (or grumpy or pissed or whatever you want to call it, an unpleasant, tangible fog fills the room) is not healthy.

So I’m really really trying to improve my reaction to and anticipation over my husband’s reactions. And I’m trying to find little, everyday ways to show my love aside from gifts or routines. And somewhere, deep in there, is the balance between Stepford Wife and absentee wife.

Well, it’s technically Christmas day, but I still haven’t been able to fall asleep.

Aside from that, things are okay. My lunch derailed my daily points, but not too horrendously (like a trip to Red Robin or Anderson’s would). Their cats are still so kittenish and adorable and little Frankie (a chocolate-point girl they’re “fostering”-to-adopt that was too afraid at first to eat, drink, or leave a single room) is an affectionate cuddlebug that is learning to find her place within the pecking-order with her new brothers Remy and Logan. Below is a picture of the three of them (Frankie’s wearing a collar, Logan has antlers, and Remy’s Santa Claws).

Christmas Kitties-In-Law

Peter told his parents today that we want to move back home to Buffalo. Apparently, they’re concerned regarding job prospects. I didn’t know he told them until 12 hours later. They’ve kept relatively quiet until (and since) then regarding the subject. They also ignore mention of my being on disability leave or having minimal memories (due to my June 2009 ECT treatments) of my sister-in-law’s June wedding or the entire year preceding it. So I don’t know what they’re thinking, but I pretty much feel like crap – a millstone around their son’s neck that is enabling/enhancing his weaknesses rather than a strong partner to keep him happy and driven in whatever field he chooses.

I’m tired and frustrated and anxious. It’s hard not remembering an entire year, including 2 family weddings and a big family holiday, and having nobody outside of Peter, his parents, his sister (and her husband), and one of Peter’s six aunts know, with two very-large-extended-family get-togethers ahead of us. Oh, and my grandmother’s blood pressure is 70/30, so I’ll be home just in time for the funeral.

Well, who needs a boring life, hmmm? Certainly not someone as boring as me