Back in Training

I started training over FaceTime with Leanne again today. Its expensive, but I need it.

Last week was bad. I mean REALLY bad. I was drinking every night and not working out at all. I needed a big slap in the face, so I called Leanne, and today, well it was great.

Last weekend was good though. Rays Birthday is the 5th of April and Ill be heading to moms Friday the 10th ( it was put off another 2 weeks...and you know...self isolate for 2 weeks after seeing him so now its the 10th), so we celebrated it this weekend. I feel like he was really "there" with me again this weekend. Its been a while.

Nothing is normal though. I don't know if it ever will be right now, but were managing to keep it together, and I know that I love him.

The decision to start training was a hard one. Financially its going to kill me, but I'm killing myself in other ways by not doing it.

Short and sweet. I hope I have more -better- things to say next time.

Written on 03/23/2020 - PANDEMIC

I’m laying here it is 1:44 AM Monday March 23.

Coronavirus 19 is taking over the world. 

What started as some experiment gone horribly wrong in China…(they think...but we really don’t know), has not shut down that country, and more are following. Thursday the 12^th was the last “normal” day I can recall. Ray came over and we were headed to play pinball, thinking it might be the last chance we got to do so if the US was following the lead of Italy and other countries across the world that had literally shut down to stop the spread of the disease. His daughter, Heaven, cut her hand though and he had to go home. He dropped me off at My Parents Basement and with Lysol wipes in hand, I played with 3 other patrons for hours. Did I really think that would be the last time Id be in that place for months? Not really. Who could have imagined what the very next day would bring.

Shut down. A state wide “shelter in place” order was issued and we all just let it sink in as we watched the numbers of cases in the US climb every day.

It’s weird, everything is weird. My mom is by herself in Marietta. My sister Elise is by herself in Buckhead. My sister Beth is up the street with her husband John so they have each other which is good.

I am by self I’ve been self-quarantining for a week now. I saw my boyfriend Ray this past weekend before he headed home so I could go for the 2 week period they say is in incubation time for the virus, then if all is well, I will head to my mom’s for a couple of weeks.

We had a weird weekend. We’ve gone through some rough spots recently, beginning the on our anniversary weekend last month. He behaved in a way on a night out that really frightened me, and I don’t think he was, or is, really sorry about it, or thinks he did anything wrong. Then the next weekend we got into a real fight. It was about the virus, and facts that he “knows” and things I’ve been told by people who work in the field. The argument, on my end, seemed more about how he seems to need to be right about everything he talks about. His claim is “I don’t talk about things I don’t know about”. My side is, “ If an infectious disease Dr from the CDC says they had funding cut then Im going to go with yes, they did..” an argument supported by MG, who was there for this exchange at My Parents Basement.

We all came back to my house and it was all fine until I brought it up again when we went to bed. I was drunk, so was he. I really don’t recall the exact exchange of words except at one point I told him to get out of my house. This was a mistake. My “fight or flight” instinct kicked in and I just wanted him to shut up and not be there anymore. I paid for it the next day and I think for weeks after. I think Im still paying for it. He told me Id “threatened” him...a word he uses to explain how he feels when I tell him we should just break up if we can’t work things out. That word means something else entirely to me, so when he uses that word against me I feel all the more frustrated and angry with him. I will say however, he was right in that I don’t need to “threaten” to break up with him every time we have an argument.

Fight or flight. That’s all I know. Im working on it. I promised him I would never “threaten” to break up with him again unless I meant it for good. I will keep that promise because he’s right about that part for sure. I need to learn how to have an argument and know that the man I love still loves me too and that he’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.

That was 5 weeks ago and I still feel like Im being punished a little, but Im working through it. I will say though, that especially now, with all that happening, I really wish he would just go back to loving me again the way he did in the fall, because sometimes it doesn’t feel like he does anymore. 

 
Saturday night I walked outside with gabby and was looking in at the lights of the house thinking if this weren’t going on right now, this pandemic, that maybe I would break it off with him.

Fight or flight rearing its head again? We aren’t arguing, but something has changed. That man that wanted me so badly back in the fall has retreated. Or maybe I pushed him away? In the last 5 weeks I’ve bent over backwards to let him know how much I love him and how much I want him to be in my life. He has not done the same for me, and that coupled with the rest of this shit, well, it makes me sad, and worried about what is in store for us. Or maybe that horoscope from last year (which I believe was addressing this very time of year) is true. That one or both of us is not seeing this relationship for what it really is.

I do actually love him. I mean really love him. I think about him and the year that has passed and I’m so happy that I met him. Ray has been somebody that I have experienced things with that I have never done with anyone else. Back in October when we started over again I really thought he was all in. Trying to be the man I wanted.

Where it falls short I guess is my fantasy of what it could be. Or maybe just what it actually should be in reality in some ways. Money seems to be an issue, and Im afraid it always will be. I wish I had a million dollars so I didn’t have to worry about any of that stuff, but even if I did, I think I’d resent always feeling like Im footing the bill.

OK wait hang on I don’t pay for everything all the time. There are many times when Ray paid for things, but I do think that he does forget or just doesn’t realize how much money I spend on just the things we do at home. He does contribute in many ways. He gets in the mood to do something and suddenly 3 projects get knocked out. Boom! So yeah that’s super helpful and greatly appreciated.

The main part really is that sometimes, especially after last summer / fall, I wonder if  there’s something going on with him mentally that I won’t be able to handle. I don’t know what it is, but he says things sometimes that make me take a pause, and I feel like Im still being held away from his real self.

I don’t know how to describe it other than that we’ve been together for over a year now and I’m still NOT a part of HIS life. He comes to me, and he’s part of MY life. It’s almost like he comes here and its like a little bit of a vacation. 

So when I walked outside Saturday night, and I was having these thoughts about whether I really wanted to be with him, I got upset, because I know when it’s time for him to go home I get sad, and laying here now I miss him.

Things are just hard right now and with this being my only real experience in some ways with a lasting loving relationship, maybe Im just expecting too much. We are, at best only human, and let’s face it, this situation is new for everyone.

 I mean right now the entire world is falling apart. Literally the whole world is falling apart. Like my best option right now is to stay in my house and not go ANYWHERE. It’s a very Stephen King kind of thing. Seems totally unreal and yet it’s happening.

I wonder lying here if someone I know will get it and die. Even a “bar friend”, or one of my REAL friends. Anne and Vic are in New York City…it’s a death zone. Im so worried for them.

 Or Ray….or my sisters….or me…or my mom.

I’m so scared for her. I’m so worried even for her to be around me or anyone else. I know that she is lonely and is waiting for us to come up and be with her but I almost feel like she is better off and safer without anyone there. It’s hard to explain it to her and make her understand that we’re not going to stay away from her on purpose, and I can hear the tears in her voice when I tell her to keep hanging on and I’ll be there in 2 weeks.

I want to be there, I do I really do, but I’m so afraid that me being there is going to put her in harms way because this virus is so contagious… it’s frightening… it’s so frightening.

 I don’t want my mom to lose her life and be on a ventilator because we just couldn’t wait to hang out. She’s being so tough, so awesome, such a trooper. My father was a Vietnam veteran. He did 2 tours and was awarded the Bronze Star again and again.  I believe that my daddy would be very proud of my mother…. his bride…. that she is being so tough and so willing to do what she needs to do to stay safe.

I fear for all of her efforts that if even one of us goes up there to hang out with her at this point that we are going to be raining death to her door. Tomorrow I may call my mother and tell her that I’m not coming up there and, I think that we all (Beth and Elise) should do the same thing for now.

Sleep now. 

Hopefully tomorrow will bring better news.