Here under the microscope I have this relationship with someone I really do enjoy. I would like to stay with this one. I feel comfortable. Except, now that he appears to either be freaking out, or I am freaking out over whatever reaction he's actually having (if it isn't freaking out, it's something else yet undefined) I would like to say, hey, this is how I feel. I want it to be heard, I want it to make a difference, I want the other person to hear and understand and go "Oh I feel so much better now since you said that!" and I just don't see that happening. Any. Time. Soon.
I fell into a comfortable spot the other day and it felt like I was fine with the way things were going. It soon became obvious not everybody is comfortable with the way things are going.
Sometime last week a friend called to ask how J. is doing and I told her. Well I'm not sure, we got back from Mayo, there was some lack of communication because I went to go get the boys and then he just went to his house and I didn't really hear from him. She said "Well come swimming over here Sunday and go to his house and make him come with, he won't argue with you with the little boys there."
Um, that didn't sound like such a good idea. I just let people feel the way they're feeling. And that's what I told her.
She said, speaking from the experience of a current cancer survivor, "no, you have to make him do this, he has to come out of his house, you can't let him withdraw. Just tell him you are doing it because you love him. It might rain Sunday but you know what, come anyway because the kids will swim even if it does rain."
(Seriously I think what happened is she called him, and he didn't answer, she called me, but then later I don't hear any more about it. In the meantime I don't know if she's still waiting for him to call. Or if I'm really still supposed to challenge him to this duel, come swimming with us or else.)
I'm scared of that kind of thing. I don't put myself in a position to create waves ever because I really just can't cause my own undoing. I don't want to make anybody do anything. I can make myself do things, but I really do not like to fail, so if at all, attempting to make him do something is going to be really delicately timed.
So I thought about it. I talked to him over the weekend and he seemed fine. But, by the time today rolled around I was more than ready to get out of the house with the boys and get a little sun. I cleaned out my closet. I packed up two bags of clothes. I waited around a little. Then a lot. The little guys got antsy and I had already told them my plan ahead of time so every three minutes someone else was asking me when we're going. Finally I called her up and she didn't seem to remember our previous talk, she asked what I was up to. I said, well last time we talked blah blah blah swimming you said make J. come with me and the boys today hopefully? When she began talking I learned he had gone over there to visit on Friday but whatever happened, her husband was on his way to work or something else came up and they didn't really get to talk. She said today somebody else was swimming with some kids over at their pool and it didn't work out that I could go out there right at that moment. That truly was a bummer. I absolutely do not enjoy inviting myself over to anybody's house and was specifically taught never to do it. This is what it felt like when I called over there and she didn't say "Hey come on out." It felt weird. She said she'd see if these other people were leaving soon. I decided we could run to Wal Mart and grab some drinks and snacks just in case, so the boys wouldn't be rooting through her refrigerator if we did get to go swimming. Those boys will eat everything in your house. And my house. And your neighbor's house. And their neighbor's house.
In the cheese aisle while L. was measuring how long the Summer Sausages were against a 12" floor tile, she called and said the other people didn't appear to be leaving any time soon and what were we doing tomorrow?
Well the boys go with their dad tomorrow morning to parts unknown. Maybe Wednesday would work.
Ugh my heart just sank. Right there to the floor of the cheese aisle, right between the string cheese and the slices. (A.) I have not seen J. since Wednesday. (B.) I already told the Mongol Hoards that we were going swimming.
Okay Plan B: Text J. and tell him we are coming over to his house with a picnic and a sprinkler and we're going to run in the sprinkler in his back yard.
All is right with the world, I pick out the cheese, L. chooses a gigantic Summer Sausage the size of his arm, we grab some crackers and caffeine free beverages and a cart full of other crap. Away we go. Self Check-Out was horrific. The little boys always want to help me. They stand up under my arm pits and supervise my scanning and bagging. And this time of course a line of people congregated behind me because even though there are 8 other Self Check-Outs, no, they all have to line up behind me, the woman with 800 items and little boys under her wings.
After I checked out, I realized I got way more than I thought I did, because of course I was grabbing things emotionally. Because I can't just have a big disappointed tantrum and let it all out, I have to Pollyanna my way into a Plan B. where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're coming to take me away hee hee, ha ha, oh, wait. No. Wrong scene.
We get the ice at the last minute on the way out the store because there aren't ice chests near the Self Check-Out. So I send my oldest with ten bucks and two dinky bags of ice to stand in line while we wait at the entrance and further block traffic and cause a nuisance. While he is waiting the ice begins to melt. But finally we are out the door, pack up the cooler and on our way to pick up the teenage girlfriend, a rare and feathery blonde specimen who claims her mother suggested she needs a tan, while displaying her long pale arms. I insist she does not need a tan. Because we are not going swimming.
Plan B crashed and burned while we were at the red light and my phone read his reply to me (I was not texting in my car technically because my phone reads them to me out loud) "Can we do it another time?"
It never crossed my mind that he'd turn us down. In our moment of ridiculously hot, humid, time to play in the sprinklers because someone else decided I should plan to go swimming with my kids and through no fault of her own flaked out, need.
Well FINE. Fine.
Fine. Just great. Now what am I going to do? We have a cooler full of ice and cheese and crap and two bags full of swimsuits and towels an emergency sprinkler. Because I never really did believe the swimming was gonna pan out, and packed my sprinkler. My friend M. bought me the yellow KMart garden sprinkler years and years ago for the boys to play in as part of a housewarming gift when I moved into this apartment. She didn't know I don't have access to a hose. Up until today it has lived in the pantry on the floor behind the extra paper towels, just waiting for a day such as this, when I would be completely unprepared for anything about not to happen, but damn it, I'd have a sprinkler.
So, all righty then. We were on the road already, so I phoned W. as my last resort. She said sure come on over and we proceeded to invade her house. Before that I texted him back, "Sure, we'll bring our cooler full of cheese, crackers, sausage and icy cool drinks and our sprinkler to someone else's house."
I wanted it to sound snappish. I shouldn't have replied at all.
I built a little hors d'ourve tray of desperation on a paper plate out of Triscuits and sugar snap peas and cheddar cubes and a Summer Sausage that I hacked up with a plastic knife. We all got plastic cups I had packed, and I wrote our names on them with Sharpie marker.
The little boys played in the sprinkler and the teenage couple lolled around on the couch watching movies. I ate. Lots of Triscuits and cheese and sausage. We made Smores on the gas stove by spearing these gigantic marshmallows with forks and knives.
I worried. I worried that I do not know how to do this part. I don't know how to completely give up my comfortable safe and yet unstable current existence and have a life where the person I like to be with really doesn't want to spend time with us. I like my schedule! I liked that he'd come over some times. I liked that my kids like him a lot. I enjoy that part of my life, and now I'm worried that I'm standing on the edge of some other life entirely.
I don't know how to say, with no misunderstanding: "You're still young! Have the surgery! Get the cancer removed! So what if your parts won't work anymore, it's not all about the sex!"
Because that isn't very polite is it? It is bound to cause some misunderstanding. Because what man wants to hear that it's not all about the sex? I mean even if superficially someone wants to avoid the real problem and think it is all about sex, and deeply he knows it isn't, and even though it truly isn't, at least a little part about a person wants to feel like that's a big deal. I think in terms of the least damage to the most fragile. This isn't even technically my crisis and it's already starting to scare me.
Dear Holy Spirit:
Please watch over us and do not let this turn us into people who do not relate to each other anymore. Do not turn me into an impatient person who can't deal with change and won't modify my idea of what I deserve in life to accommodate the needs of others. I have shown fully well that I can handle a crisis with one hand tied behind my back.
Amen.
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