28.5 Hours

Feb 10, 2008 00:02



28.5 hours seems pretty good.

Bill said he remembers when it would be weeks before we could get to the same point 28.5 hours did for us this time.

First, I want to say that I don’t think that my ideas, in and of themselves, are crazy. I think what might set me apart on the maybe crazy train is that I act on some of them. I know I’m still in a state even though I feel I’ve wrangled in some of it. It’s strange how stuff works. One afternoon, I’m describing all the symptoms of bipolar disorder to someone trying to decipher his own state and in another, I’m ignorant to my own.

I started feeling edgy sometime last week. Nothing too alarming, I noted how accessible volatile emotions were and my lack of control over them. Monday I felt like I was jumping out of my skin. Every muscle felt twitchy and every part of me felt impatient. I stretched and flexed then took a Vicodin. It helped. I moved furniture that day but then something went wrong and I pounded one of the pieces into the ground until it fell apart. That’s when I knew I was a little off my game.

When Bill came home Tuesday, the neighborhood urchins swarmed him, asking for Della. When he said she was inside, they asked with “the lady?” He told them yes and then they asked (in the original telling of the story anyway) “Doesn’t she work?” And here’s where it gets st/icky…Bill said “No.” Then he told me that he told them that his wife doesn’t work. Immediately, I saw a missed opportunity to inform a crowd that what a “work-at-home-parent” does is in fact, *work.* This made me angry.

I saw a partner who missed a tremendous opportunity and in him failing to see it, I saw a reality that took me by surprise. I felt as if I had sorely miscalculated the reality I’d been living in; mis-measured the weight of my worth. I felt piteous, absurd; my “work” laughable, narrow, limited. I suddenly felt excessively present, as if I had swelled and spilled over into every space. As if my opinions and feelings on every matter were so big that no others could survive. I felt I was suffocating myself and those around me…there felt to be too much of me.

Without re-hashing *all* the details of our “discussion” Tuesday night, Wednesday morning I set about creating Bill an “Elaine-Free” zone. The zone was a compromise in my mind. My original plan was to burn everything I’ve made, done, written, etc. (I was in an extreme sort of way.) As I walked through the house asking myself what wouldn’t be here if not for me, the pile of things to burn was outrageous and intimidating so I made a few boxes for Goodwill then decided on the Elaine-Free zone as the more dramatic measure to fit the occasion.

I moved all signs of me from the master and moved all his identity related items into it. When I started the task, I emailed him and told him. I guess I wanted him to call what felt like my bluff - but he didn’t, so I continued and in the doing the emotional intensity gradually lessened. When I finished the task, I felt a little relieved. I had acted on my feelings in a way that was dramatic, yes but dangerous, no. I didn’t break anything as a result of our ordeal and I didn’t hurt myself. Recognizing the paradox in having created this space, I still took comfort in knowing that traces of me were negligible.

Something else I did which, while extreme, was not nearly as radical as it could have been: I took down the 2 wedding photos we had blown up and framed. I took the photos out of the frames with the intent to burn them but thought better of it and rolled them up and put them in a box. I did this less as a symbolic gesture for the occasion and more as a transitional endeavor into a place of new potentiality for me, for him, for us.

Bill said his red flag that something chemical is at work is when *I* start telling *him* what *he* feels. I started to feel that our marital mantra “no matter what” was conditional on the exclusive nature of the “what.” The “what”, to my mind, referred to the diversity and depth of potential phenomena threatening to interfere with our relationship’s success…not with a specific “what” times 12. Ours is an imperfect relationship but not because our love is imperfect but because we love imperfectly; because we are imperfect beings. Yesterday I felt an assuredness that one day soon he’d suddenly declare “enough.” I felt that when that day comes, I won’t be ready. I felt he hadn’t yet had the clarity I knew would eventually come regarding what it is he *really* wants. I felt confident he’d soon see that I wasn’t what he wanted; that my boat load of crazy was too small for both of us. There’s no way to make this understandable because it isn’t easy to understand. What I feel is real even if what’s real isn’t what I feel.

It was good to hear how he processed potential mood initiated/related incidents because it has helped me frame some of my current feelings about others in my life. What I’m feeling is like paranoia but less scary - I’m feeling out of touch and out of place with people in my life and I imagine it’s because they see me in a way I wish they didn’t…I have no grounds for these imaginings, but they feel real. This too, as all other chemical dramas, shall pass.

Despite a good 8+ hours of labor - Bill hates his Elaine-Free zone. I don’t mind that he does. I will work to re-integrate our things but I do think it’s a good exercise to stop desiring so deeply to make my mark in this space. I like how it felt when I reflected on my surroundings with this question: “If I wasn’t here tomorrow, what wouldn’t need to be here?” If there comes a day when I’m not here, I want what remains to be intentional, thoughtful and perhaps most importantly, small. There is too much of me at work here and I don’t want it that way.

These emotional blitzes are exhausting but celebrating having survived (yet another) one is always beyond words.

One more thing…ON WORK:
There’s a person here that needs to be ready for the world and it would probably benefit all if she had boundaries, used the loo and knew her left from her right. I don’t know if for anyone else, but for me, being a full time parent is harder than any salaried position I’ve had or can imagine having. I know that parents (in a fairly nuclear family dynamic) who both work outside the home are supposed to be special - revered for their energy & devotion to both public and domestic spheres. I can’t see how anyone could consider the work of a stay-at-home-parent as anything exclusively domestic…the kid has to make her way in the world someday, doesn’t she? Isn’t good parenting (of which the jury is still out on, I know) a highly necessary and valued public service? The kid aside, there’s the whole cleaning, cooking, planning, bill paying bit that this work-at-home-spouse is responsible for. I don’t care how you cut it, that’s work. Next time the neighbor kids ask, I’ll set the record straight.

bipolar disorder, neighborhood, mood, home, marriage, bill

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