For months we have lived under the threat of layoff until it actually happened and now we live with the reality of layoff. I have been through this before but it was just me. Thursday night D got an email from her sister about the ‘terms’ under which she would be willing to help. Obviously this upset D. Basically what her sister wanted was to see all D’s financials and make sure she was not having any unnecessary fun living ‘extravagantly’ – by her standards. In all the time we have been together I have never really seen all the financials. There have been times when I mentioned something related to bills and how money is spent and she became immediately defensive so I backed off and came quickly to the decision that I would stay out of it. The problem now is that all the things related to the layoff do affect me and after all these months I lost my perspective. At a really lousy time.
We don’t see eye to eye on money issues. I have my own baggage where that is concerned. And several other things that are related to the situation and they all collided and made a spectacular disaster.
We were sitting at the bar of a restaurant near the country bar where we were planning to go and dance. She had been quiet and sullen. Except when she was telling me what she thought about her sister’s remarks. But that was in the car. At the bar she was writing to her sister and the tension in the air was oppressive. Strangling. I stared at the liquor bottles. I stared at the menu. I stared out the window. It was uncomfortable. Did I mention we are both at that point in our cycles? Email finished and sent we talked about how she felt about things. And then… she implied that our situations were the same. Sort of. It was an ‘it’s like this you know.’ Yeah I know. I thought about it for a minute and started crying.
When I lost my job I had some of the same feelings that she has but the layers and layers of other emotions, the ones I have been so desperately attempting to keep a lid on all boiled to the surface demanding my attention. My attention was supposed to be on her. On her crisis. On her issue. I was supposed to be listening and supporting. Instead I unzipped my baggage and proceeded to empty the contents in her lap right there in the bar. As bad as that was I didn’t stop there, oh no, I then opened the special box where I keep my view of the world and dumped that on top of the mess I had already made.
How absurd for me to push my standards and philosophy on her less than an hour after I said her sister should not do that. How hypocritical of me to do that when I am so outspoken about NOT doing that to others.
So why was I so surprised when all hell broke loose between us. I have no idea. It got ugly. I have issues that have been exacerbated, spotlighted, rubbed raw then been further exfoliated with salt and vinegar by all the things that have been happening lately. Despite my efforts to keep them separate, to deal with them on my own they all came out of there neatly stored boxes where they are supposed to wait until I can deal with them. Until I have the emotional energy and courage to take them on. One or two at a time. I really hate it when someone is careless enough to bump the book case that holds all these boxes. All the boxes that hold my issues. My shit. If the book case takes a hit some times boxes fall off the shelves and there I am with a load of things to deal with all at once whether I have the energy or sanity to deal with them or not. They came crashing down that night. Let’s not lay blame on who knocked them off the shelf in the first place (because it was probably me and I have enough crow to eat and humble pie for dessert, thanks).
D was talking about being independent, working hard for the things that she has, hating to ask for help, having to justify herself to others and feeling judged for a situation that is beyond her control. Uh, yeah. Sounds like the story of my life. But for me these things will not be remedied by landing a great job. For her they will and very likely soon. (One of the things I said to her, which I should not have, was that I felt she had to learn some lesson before she got that job. She heard that all wrong. But I think that she may be near the end of the lesson, she just doesn’t know it. That’s fine you can learn all sorts of things and not realize the how or why). For me all those things she has been struggling with are life long issues for me. I was angry with her for comparing them because it felt like someone who broke both legs and had to spend three months in a wheel chair comparing their experience with someone who has been a paraplegic for ten years and will always be. Yes it is a glimpse into that world but hardly the same experience.
It made me feel selfish to have brought up my issues when she was having a problem. I apologized for that and for telling her she had a lesson to learn. I thought we were progressing toward a resolution. I was wrong.
A moment of quiet passed before she launched into a biting tirade listing all the things I had done wrong, all the ways I had not been supportive, all the ways I had hurt her and judged her and not validated her, not listened. Ouch. I was so hurt. It was silent the remaindered of the drive home. I had finished preparing for bed before I asked her if she was speaking to me since she had not said a word following her admonishments merely made one of those one syllable mocking laughs when I replied to the angry list of wrongs I had committed by saying that I had thought we were making progress. Apparently I was wrong; the conversation was far from over.
During all the time she had felt the pressure mounting at work, during the time she felt the threat of loosing her job, during the time following the loss of her job I worked to support her. Spent so much time and energy trying to think of ways to help her. To sooth her. To support her. To encourage her. Through her haze of anger and hormones she told me I had not done any of those things in fact I had done the opposite. I was at a loss. It seemed counter productive to go point by point down the list and remind her of what had actually happened. To my mind she needed to figure that out on her own, so I said very little. Frankly that part is a little fuzzy in my memory, until the part she said she was sorry. A bit later I said to her how hurtful those words had been. She apologized again.
Some time ago we were in the shower. I was exfoliating my legs with a pair of bath gloves made specifically for that purpose. For some reason I reached a point that I could not tolerate the scrubbing. This is a very unusual experience for me and I made some remark about having enough of that. D and I had been talking about something else (how intriguing that we would be speaking about something other than my personal dead skin removal) and the timing of my ‘enough’ coincided with something she was saying and she took it to mean I’d reached my limit about what we were discussing. I was baffled by her sudden defensiveness having missed entirely the misunderstanding that had just occurred. In previous relationships it was something that would have been common place but for me, well I would never. I put my arms around her and whispered in her ear “If you get that feeling, if something I say or do makes you feel bad, pause, think about me and whether or not I would say or do that thing to hurt you. Pause and think what my intentions would be. You know me well enough to do that.” She agreed.
Each of us has had much hurt in our past and at times we confuse that with our partner. Our loving partner who has our best interest at heart all the time. Sometimes the boxes fall and too much spills out at once. Sometimes that makes for a difficult day for me but other times D gets caught up in it too. I never mean for her to have my boxes fall on her but sometimes it happens. On occasion I think it happens the other way round too, but I don’t know where she stores her issues, her pains and grief but I have bumped into them a time or two.
Really this was a collision of all our stuff all at the same time. That is never good. Add hormones and it is surprising it wasn’t worse. I am not a violent person. My gloves are metaphorical. We did manage to keep it in the ring and fight as cleanly as possible, considering. It doesn’t happen often. And we always manage to bring it all back together and clean it up when we are done. So far I don’t have a box with her name on it. Let’s keep it that way.
Anna said,
August 30, 2009 at 8:18 pm
(((hugs)))