The Summer Of My Discontent
Never thought I'd say this, but I miss my boat. No, not Missed The Boat, although that could be the case, considering the state of my being, but my boat is in drydock this summer and I have spent every weekend up here in suburbia instead of at the shore.
And even though my over-zealous and quite-pumped-on-illegal-substances-husband had made going to the boat not so much fun for the past few years (he was way over the top, insisting on being there way too much and then doing nothing but ramble on to people and never actually doing anything boat-y) I find that not having it at all to escape to this summer is wearing on my spirit. See, every damn weekend this summer has been pretty nice. And my husband is in the process of recovering his wits since going through detox,and even his precious boat is too much "pressure" (careful, I'm snarking and not supposed to be). We ran it aground in the shallow bay water last summer, damaging the transmission in the process, and he just couldn't get it togther enough to call the stupid marina and tell them to find out what's wrong and fix it if it's not too much $. And I have been handling EVERYTHING else and we had a deal that I would handle everything else if he would just call the marina, but no dice. I'm just not comfortable doing it-I have no relationship with them, and have no idea what to do etc-he has dealt with them since day one. So, I figured I would just suck it up this summer and in the beginning I was kind of relieved seeing how he had made it a pain in the ass for so long-refusing to leave on Sunday until it was like 9pm or later, so we'd get home at 11 or later, and on Fridays he wouldn't get home from work til late and then insist on driving down there all buzzed. It got to the point where I just came and went on my own, but he was such an asshole while we were there, well, I began to hate it.
So now you can actually have a two-way conversation with him and he has mellowed out and is not annoying to be around, but he also can't get himself motivated to do ANYTHING. Which I suppose is okay for now since his brain was pretty fried and it takes months for it to re-wire itself. So I am trying to just be patient, but our friends do not get this. They seem to take delight in emailing me their "itineraries" and telling me everthing they are doing every freaking week. One friend who has a boat too asked if my husband wonders what they are all doing. Christ. Of course he does, but really, the friend doesn't understand that it's painful for him since it's hard enough right now just to not get high.
So, Saturday dawned with a clear blue sky and temps in the 80's with virtually no humidity. Perfect East Coast weather.
Again.
And for all of my griping, at least at my boat I could be away from the deserted city, I could go to the beach, I ride my bicycle everywhere and I do love the shore.
I just couldn't stand another beautiful weekend spent trying to amuse myself. And on Sunday it was beautiful.
Again.
And I just kind of snapped.
The walls were closing in.
I was feeling so claustrophobic. And I snapped at my husband, who then retreated to his new home-away-from-home, our rec room, and sat on the couch and did not get up from it until like 8pm that night. But in the meantime, I had to get out of there.
I went to the park. It's a big park. It has a lake and around the lake there is a mile-long walking path. So I walked.
And what do you think is the first thing I run into? A wedding party taking pictures in the park.
I thought of my own wedding day, and I thought of how I never thought it would come to this. To me hoping upon hope that my addicted husband would once again become someone to do stuff with, to have fun with, to not worry about and be anxious and embarrassed and lose weight over.
I hoped that the couple in the park never had to have their dreams smashed and stomped on. I thought of Bruce Springsteen's song, Tunnel Of Love. Some words from it are the truest I've ever seen about marriage:
"It ought to be easy, it oughtta be simple enough,
Man meets a woman, and they fall in love.
But this house is haunted, and the ride gets rough,
You've got learn to live with what you can't rise above,
As we ride on down baby, into this Tunnel of Love."
And another excerpt:
"There's a room of shadows,
That gets so dark Brother,
It's easy for two people
To lose each other,
In this Tunnel of Love."
A lot of people don't get Springsteen, but some of his songs have hit me right where I live.
And I miss my boat.
And it's only July 14th. Lots more summer weekends left.
I hope it rains every single one.
And even though my over-zealous and quite-pumped-on-illegal-substances-husband had made going to the boat not so much fun for the past few years (he was way over the top, insisting on being there way too much and then doing nothing but ramble on to people and never actually doing anything boat-y) I find that not having it at all to escape to this summer is wearing on my spirit. See, every damn weekend this summer has been pretty nice. And my husband is in the process of recovering his wits since going through detox,and even his precious boat is too much "pressure" (careful, I'm snarking and not supposed to be). We ran it aground in the shallow bay water last summer, damaging the transmission in the process, and he just couldn't get it togther enough to call the stupid marina and tell them to find out what's wrong and fix it if it's not too much $. And I have been handling EVERYTHING else and we had a deal that I would handle everything else if he would just call the marina, but no dice. I'm just not comfortable doing it-I have no relationship with them, and have no idea what to do etc-he has dealt with them since day one. So, I figured I would just suck it up this summer and in the beginning I was kind of relieved seeing how he had made it a pain in the ass for so long-refusing to leave on Sunday until it was like 9pm or later, so we'd get home at 11 or later, and on Fridays he wouldn't get home from work til late and then insist on driving down there all buzzed. It got to the point where I just came and went on my own, but he was such an asshole while we were there, well, I began to hate it.
So now you can actually have a two-way conversation with him and he has mellowed out and is not annoying to be around, but he also can't get himself motivated to do ANYTHING. Which I suppose is okay for now since his brain was pretty fried and it takes months for it to re-wire itself. So I am trying to just be patient, but our friends do not get this. They seem to take delight in emailing me their "itineraries" and telling me everthing they are doing every freaking week. One friend who has a boat too asked if my husband wonders what they are all doing. Christ. Of course he does, but really, the friend doesn't understand that it's painful for him since it's hard enough right now just to not get high.
So, Saturday dawned with a clear blue sky and temps in the 80's with virtually no humidity. Perfect East Coast weather.
Again.
And for all of my griping, at least at my boat I could be away from the deserted city, I could go to the beach, I ride my bicycle everywhere and I do love the shore.
I just couldn't stand another beautiful weekend spent trying to amuse myself. And on Sunday it was beautiful.
Again.
And I just kind of snapped.
The walls were closing in.
I was feeling so claustrophobic. And I snapped at my husband, who then retreated to his new home-away-from-home, our rec room, and sat on the couch and did not get up from it until like 8pm that night. But in the meantime, I had to get out of there.
I went to the park. It's a big park. It has a lake and around the lake there is a mile-long walking path. So I walked.
And what do you think is the first thing I run into? A wedding party taking pictures in the park.
I thought of my own wedding day, and I thought of how I never thought it would come to this. To me hoping upon hope that my addicted husband would once again become someone to do stuff with, to have fun with, to not worry about and be anxious and embarrassed and lose weight over.
I hoped that the couple in the park never had to have their dreams smashed and stomped on. I thought of Bruce Springsteen's song, Tunnel Of Love. Some words from it are the truest I've ever seen about marriage:
"It ought to be easy, it oughtta be simple enough,
Man meets a woman, and they fall in love.
But this house is haunted, and the ride gets rough,
You've got learn to live with what you can't rise above,
As we ride on down baby, into this Tunnel of Love."
And another excerpt:
"There's a room of shadows,
That gets so dark Brother,
It's easy for two people
To lose each other,
In this Tunnel of Love."
A lot of people don't get Springsteen, but some of his songs have hit me right where I live.
And I miss my boat.
And it's only July 14th. Lots more summer weekends left.
I hope it rains every single one.