I just watched Pixar’s “Up” for the first time, again (since the 1st time was during my ECT, I remembered little more than sobbing through the beginning montage). It can’t help but make me cry – especially after this most recent flare. Let me explain.

The movie is predicated on this Great Love that lasts from childhood through old age and beyond…

When I first saw it, I probably felt two things (1) love for my husband and the hope that it would be that wonderful, and (2) guilt over having been depressed enough to be hospitalized, which I believe hurt him more than he’ll ever say, especially to me.

I still feel that horrible, gnawing guilt over the fact that I thought he, and my other loved ones, but mostly him, would be better off without me in his life, especially if it was deemed an accident, and that they all now know just how selfish I had been.

However, I now feel a second guilt: we aren’t aging together, despite being approximately the same chronological age. At 29.9, my husband is rather healthy, despite untreated allergies, and in relatively good shape while I, at 30.2, I waiver between being a seemingly competent person and a decrepit nearly-bed-ridden crone.

I’ve seen marriages crumble, or at least become very strained, when the age difference suddenly becomes significant and limiting, or one person becomes more disabled than before… The disabled individual, like me, is often humiliated by how much they can’t do (or can’t let themselves do, due to potential consequences) and feels guilty. The younger or non-disabled partner is taking on more and more responsibilities, feeling more pressure at home and work, their recreation is limited as well, and so he or she can be a bit resentful. This leads to tensions and disagreements and miscommunications, or just resentful trudging-through.

So, this time I saw “Up,” I cried because I don’t know if we can have that kind of loving, lasting partnership when I now behave like I’m more than twice his age. I feel as though my only real hope for having a happy, loving, lasting future with the man I love is losing at least 35 lbs over the next year, getting my business running, and personal-training by someone who’s had experience and success with fibromyalgia patients. It may not be true, but it certainly feels that way.

I’m finally feeling better, though. Last weekend, I was basically in bed both days, and was in increasing pain over the course of the week. However, Friday night I slept over 12 hours and then last night I slept 8 hrs and then had two 1-2 hour naps later on today. With this sleep, my skin no longer hurts and I was able to do some cleaning of the kitchen floor, with Peter’s help. Tomorrow, I have my first training appointment, Tuesday, I have a woman from the dachshund rescue coming to do a home visit before approving or denying my application, and then Wednesday, I have a former-tutee-turned-pre-teaching-college-student helping me get my tutoring room together.

This means I’m praying I can get the table down to the rec room and get the first floor and downstairs a little cleaner by the end of this long weekend, with my husband’s help, and still stay relatively low on the pain-scale. We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve been feeling very frustrated over my fibromyalgia-related limitations. This past week, my arms (or, rather, the shoulder-blades/upper-back region) have been hurting horribly and the muscles have swollen. This weekend (Sat & Sun), I did nothing. Quite literally nothing (aside from using the bathroom, brushing my teeth (electric toothbrush), and feeding myself a limited amount).  I lay in bed listening to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo yesterday and some Neil Gaiman short stories today, sometimes propping myself up in bed and doing Kakuro (cross-sums) puzzles while I listened.

My husband spent the weekend at a “Magic: The Gathering” Grand Prix tournament just outside D.C., coming home only to sleep a few hours Saturday night and finally crash around 5pm on Sunday. He did very well Saturday (top 220 out of 1930, getting him into the 2nd day’s rounds), but the adrenaline high only lasted enough to get him home. So I haven’t seen much of him or gotten to talk to him.

Talking on the phone has been difficult, as has being on the computer, due to the amount I need to use my arms. So I haven’t been able to spend time chatting with my sister or brothers or niece & nephews or grandmother (well, technically, my husband’s grandmother, but she’s adopted me which is a wonderful warm fuzzy feeling).

I couldn’t clean the kitchen floor so local students can be invited to study here. I couldn’t put books on shelves downstairs to get the tutoring room together. Heck, I couldn’t even put dishes away and could barely refill my water bottle with the Brita. The stuff that’s left over from the renovation needs to be returned to Home Depot and Lowes, but my husband has to put it into my car. And the kitty litter, which I’d thought my husband had changed when we went and got litter on Thursday, had not been changed (and it was disgusting then – I am so, so angry)!

Someone’s going to come do a home visit to see if it’s a suitable foster-dog placement. Right now, I’m not ready to let someone into my home.

I feel let down… My husband said I could count on him to do things for me on Thursday and Friday evenings, but that wasn’t completely true, because he really was only willing to do 30 minutes worth of work, max, and if that involved going out and picking up the litter, well, then the litter would have to be changed later. My husband made it sound like I could depend on him to handle the garbage every week, but he will only take 1 trip out on Thursday morning, so if everything can’t be brought on that trip it’ll have to wait. So, when I came down on Thursday, the master bedroom garbage pail was empty (but still in the kitchen) and the cooler from eDiets and the big black garbage bag were gone, the kitchen garbage was still very very full.

It’s a horrible situation: my husband is extremely vehement that he does NOT want people coming in to help me clean even just once in specific rooms, but he is too busy and needs some down time and therefore hasn’t had time to do much cleaning, like scrub the kitchen floor or counters, or wash windows, or do the dishes last week, or just put the Home Depot stuff in my car (I can tip someone for helping me load and bring it into the store), or even go get his own Pepsi out of my car. I understand his point of view: he wakes up early, works all day, needs some time to decompress, needs some time to have fun, and needs to sleep… He’s tired and may feel put upon by all the things that need doing that I can’t share the burden of. He does something for me every day and still that never seems to be enough, I always seem to have more that I’m asking of him.

But carrying my dinner plate and a water bottle to the living room is painful – I can’t do much of anything and just keep hurting myself when I try. We’re running out of clean clothing, but he hasn’t carried any laundry down and may not always be available to carry it back up. Going to Target to get my prescriptions was difficult because I had to pick up shampoo for my husband (which was very heavy, ridiculously enough, but so was pushing a cart) and I got home in so much pain I was dizzy and nauseous.

I guess this is something we can talk about in counseling tomorrow. But I feel helpless and frustrated because I don’t feel like there’s any non-painful way to deal with the situation. No matter what, I’ll be the jerk of a bad guy. Either my husband throws himself into pitching in (maybe he doesn’t see the urgency of the school year ending, of HSA week being this coming week, of me missing important opportunities by waiting) or I’ll need his consent to get someone to come by and clean the kitchen and basement and windows, and perhaps pay a former student to help me get the tutoring room together. But I kind of hit my breaking point this weekend, forcing myself to do nothing while seeing so much to do…

On a more positive note, my husband did say it’s okay for me to buy some personal training sessions with an Elite Personal Trainer at the Columbia Athletic Club, so that someone can help me strengthen my body and arms without exacerbating the injury. So, at least there’s that.

Approximately four weeks have passed since my last post and so very much is milling around my mind to write about that I am writing this post just to recognize all that I will talk about when I can:

• The bathroom is finished. Finally. It’s beautiful and not completely moved into yet, but being fully used. It was completed Friday night, at 11pm on the 23rd, and we began to use it Sunday evening. I will be fully accustomed to it after everything has been put away for a while… so, in a month or so.

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  
  
• The front of our home is no longer a jungle. Perhaps over-pruned, but I can plant at my leisure. It was a gift from my mom.
• L.A. was wonderful. We had really needed to get away from life and enjoy ourselves. I enjoyed connecting with my brother and even got to have a heart-to-heart conversation with him and find out just how very much we both have in common (poor guy). It was also wonderful getting to know Grandma Susie better and meeting Grandpa Bernie and their dog, Patsy, for the first time. Since Grandpa Bernie is extremely hard-of-hearing and is not connected to the internet, I have purchased stationery so that I can correspond with him by letter writing. Seeing my in-laws was also nice, although some comments from my husband’s sister went beyond her usual unthinkingly-self-involved zings into personally-cruel territory and I was very proud of myself for neither physically nor verbally attacking her (or even commenting on it to her). The call-her-on-it-and-get-into-a-hysterical-argument gene comes from both sides of my family on X chromosomes (and appears to only get diluted if a Y chromosome is present), as my little brother pointed out, which made me feel even prouder. Someone must have made her more aware of her need to be a little more sensitive, because she didn’t say anything rude at me after that. Overall, it was a wonderful place to visit, and I wish we could fold the globe into the 4th dimension so I could visit my adoptive grandparents and my baby brother far more often, but I would not want to live in a plastic, prop-filled world.
• I’m trying to get my business of the ground. The website is live and it has a facebook page. I have people saying they will send business my way (including the admissions director of a private school for LD students, a parent of two former students, another parent of a summer student, and the head of a local psych group). I have a now-clean rec room with attached powder room that now has matching “powder room” and “laundry room” signs so those doors can stay closed, a soon-to-be-assembled book shelf and computer desk, a printer stand/filing cabinet, a printer/copier/scanner, a soon-to-be-hooked-up computer and soon-to-be-delivered comfy waiting area furniture. A table upstairs will be brought down for tutoring purposes. The kitchen floor is now clear of boxes and junk and soon the surfaces will be too, so that I can advertise to neighbors a low-cost 3pm-5pm homework help time (to drum up business and make nice with them).
• I’m doing eDiets home-delivery to get rid of a chunk of weight. They guarantee 10 lbs in 5 weeks. In addition, I’ve joined the local gyms and pools, which was a package deal that also gives me more access to community events and activities (to shmooze and make friends). Just spending the past week preparing for the diet has had me lose 1.2 lbs.
• I want a dog. Peter does not. The best reason he has is that my health may one day improve greatly, making FT work possible, which is not conducive to dog-ownership. However, I know a dog would get me walking several times a day, every day, and we could get well or be ill together… I am hoping to foster a senior/adult dachshund. Peter thinks bringing anyone new into the household would be hard on the cats. But me being alone all day and dependent on Peter for amusement (as well as every project that I do, which all seem to involve heavy lifting to some degree) is hard on everyone. Also, doing obedience or agility or just a dog park with the dog would be another way to meet people. Since the summer is a slow time for tutors AND I’m limiting myself to 2 hrs/day of work, and I need an interactive project to keep me from obsessing over buying stuff or food or whatever else I could possibly obsess about, and I’m so incredibly lonely, I think this is the perfect solution.  So, I’m filling out long online paperwork, hoping a good match is out there and that Peter will give in if the house is clean enough and he’s getting enough of what he wants. We’ll talk about it seriously during our couple’s-counseling session Monday (along with the fact that we BOTH HATE that I am so dependent on him to do things that will enable my projects, so I don’t push, but it hurts me when he shows such disinterest in helping with getting my business started or clearing out communal space when I’ve already put a lot of work into it, but he needs some down time and relaxation time because he does work a 40-hr week, which is also why I am okay with him spending so very much time out of the house playing Magic: The Gathering with his friends, even though I am desperate for attention), and he’ll see this sometime before then so it won’t blind-side him.

So, that’s about it. A lot going on, all in a tiny span of time and all making laps around the inside of my tiny, youth-hat-sized skull.

This weekend and next week, I will be doing (with help from my sweet, loving, patient husband) some much needed spring & pre-renovation cleaning. With the closing on the mortgage-refinance happening tomorrow and nearly all our materials in our living room, the renovation of the master bath will be happening imminently. So, the following are much-needed projects:

Pre-Reno #1: Hall Bathroom
Since we’ll be using the hall bathroom instead of the master, everything we need for daily use will be going in there.

• Identify most-often-used makeup and my good brushes and put them in a small travel case.
• Organize less-used makeup into groups and put into separate cases or garbage:
  • Old or useless (garbage)
  • Lip
  • Eye
  • Cheek
  • Brushes
  • Body Products/Gifts
• Do the same with products UNDER the sink!
• Remove books
• Clean the floor, toilet, tank, and vanity

Pre-Reno #2: Guest Room
The master bath is directly attached to the master bedroom. Therefore, we will need to be able to sleep elsewhere during demo, naptime, or smelly portions of the renovation. Also, having guests over would be nice.

• Move ironing board to laundry room
• Move computer to rec room, by my school/tutoring items
• Store luggage temporarily in laundry room
• Move clothing boxes to my study, to be organized while reno is happening into 25% “store” and 75% “donate”
• Purchase new bedding
• Clean room with dustpan & brush
• Vacuum room and hallway
• Swiffer room and hallway
• Swiffer-wet room and hallway
• Move additional items (frames, etc) into my study, to be organized and stored during reno

Pre-Reno #3: Master Bath
The master bath has a lot of items roughly organized, so they’ll be pretty easy to move for the reno.

• Items in medicine cabinet to be transferred to hall bath’s cabinet or put into a small box
• Store under-sink and next-to-be-used (new toothpaste, deodorant, etc) items in a large, open box
• Headbands and under-counter bins into my study
• Jewelry put on or away
• Daily-use items will be moved the morning before demolition

Spring Cleaning #1: Windows

• Clean glass of the door’s sidelight
• Clean each sliding glass door’s glass and the slider-area
• Clean cobwebs & grossness from inner-sills
• Clean windows

Spring Cleaning #2: Deck

• Find a way to get all cushions clean (dry clean or repeatedly wash)
• Sweep away leaves
• Throw away boxes from furniture or other garbage
• Clean away cob-webs from underhanging
• Clean furniture with Formula 409 or Lysol Wipes

Spring Cleaning #3: Front of House

• Remove chair and other garbage
• Clean away cobwebs
• Get wheelbarrow and tiller and till-up ivy, weeds, and anything else growing & remove top inches of soil
• Remove dead bushes
• Move/remove small holly tree-bush
• Prune bush, hedges, and tree
• Distribute wood chips

Other Project #1: Kitchen

• Remove random items from dining-portion of kitchen
• Clear out craft items from buffet
• Organize paperwork for taxes
• Clean kitchen top-to-bottom

Other Project #2: Create Tutoring Room

• Old, icky laundry
• Clean rec room
• Clean basement bathroom
• Get, put together, and fill bookcase in rec room
• Set up multi-function printer and small filing area in rec room
• Find low-cost seating & coffee table for waiting area of rec room

My mother visited this week. She arrived Sunday, Pi Day, the day after my 30th birthday, and stayed until this evening. Almost exactly 5 full days of being silly, eating delicious food, reminiscing, and – oh yeah – tons and tons of cleaning up my life.

Monday, my mother and I cleaned out my study (and what had spilled into the hall). Even the books that I was planning to bring downstairs, she brought downstairs. It was amazing, the lifting and carrying – and this was only the beginning! The only mess left over is the paperwork and CDs and such on my desk, and the table is still up there but, for now, it’s welcome.

Tuesday, we cleaned all my stuff out of my classroom. It was stressful and sad, and it was so much easier having my mom with me. Then we went to the mall, checked out Nordstrom’s, bought some little things at Sephora and got my birthday gift, and… we purchased new eyeglasses! I know that doesn’t sound huge, but if you wear glasses every day and haven’t gotten a new pair in 4 years, it’s a big deal. I got the same shape I had before, but in blue with some silver accents. My mother got a pair, too: wire-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses that are very round on bottom and somewhat round on top. She says they’re Daniel Jackson from “Stargate: SG1″ glasses, not Harry Potter glasses. My first reaction was that they looked silly, but I got used to them quickly and they look very nice on her oval face.

Daniel Jackson from Stargate: SG1

Wednesday, my mother and I tackled the bathroom renovation. We first visited a high-end tile store and found a perfect tile for the shower and floor and a mosaic tile I really liked, too. They gave us a sample of the tile and we went to Home Depot to look at pre-assembled vanities and linen cabinets, as well as prefabricated counters. Not only did we find them in clearance, but they were just perfect for the tile and the room.

cabinetry

Then, we found tiles that were the same color for 1/5 the price and a similar, but less dark, mosaic tile! It took hours and I was exhausted and just sat down in pain half-way through, but the comparing of similar tiles, selecting the edging tile (which is marble), and just finding what I was hoping for was sooooo worth it, and it would have taken me weeks and left me feeling dissatisfied if I hadn’t had my mother with me.

Due to my pain and flagging energy, I asked my mom to stay an extra day so we could actually spend time enjoying each other and doing things at a more leisurely pace. Luckily, she could stay! So, Thursday, we went sneaker shopping and my mother spent nearly an hour taking every single box and bag and random piece of clothing out of my car and down into the basement, where I will be setting up a room for tutoring and waiting (for parents) / game-playing (for friends who we have over).

I have been driving around with 2 classrooms and 1 cubicle in my car since leaving my PT job tutoring special needs college students in October 2008 for an “amazing” opportunity to head up math curriculum for a national virtual charter school (an alternative to, or version of, homeschooling). I have felt homeless and embarrassed of my situation and it (along with my study) was an albatross I dragged around for years, adding to it, letting it spill into my kitchen to make room for groceries…

I can’t even put into words the freedom and hope my mother has given me, just by helping me with all this. I can totally handle the other projects in my life now that this has been sorted out and dealt with. The bathroom stuff was fun and helpful, but the cleaning up of my – well, of my life, really – was such an incredible weight off my shoulders, I get teary just thinking about it. I feel such hope about being a functioning professional special ed math tutor, with room to have a personal life.

Thursday afternoon and Friday, my mother and I just had fun and watched some episodes of “The Big Bang Theory,” including the newish episode of Sheldon getting stuck trying to solve a problem involving electrons moving through a graphite surface (I believe), the episode in which Penny dislocates her shoulder and Sheldon drives her to the hospital, and the episode in which Leonard’s mom first comes to visit.

I dropped her off at the local Amtrak, but I miss her already. Yes, having a close friend nearby would be nice, but it wouldn’t take the place of the wonderfulness of a visit from my mommy. I wish we could just spend a day together every week, or a weekend each month. However, I still haven’t managed to fold the Earth into the 4th dimension so that travel time would be inconsequential. Unfortunately, we’re both on our best behavior, because visits are rare…We love each other, but we can drive each other bananas. If we lived near each other, tears would be shed, neither of our husbands would be able to put up living with us, and killing sprees might not be an impossibility.

So, thanks to my mother, who cleaned up my study, my classroom, my car, and filled my basement (and my husband, who cleaned up my computer and loves all of me, including my craziness), I now start my 4th decade full of hope and excitement over all the possibilities.