What do you do?
I feel like I have said this in past blogs, yet I am going to say it once again. Growing up never prepared me for life! Nobody ever told me about problems in relationships, and I mean shit fire, I listened to parents in an abusive relationship. There were divorces in my family. There were times of having to deal with death in my life. Then I was a mom at 18 who jumped into a relationship where I was a step-mom, he was a step-dad and then we had a child together. Years later I became a wife. And the whole time there were ups and downs and struggles just to make ends meet, and that’s if we really could without someone else having to help.
In junior high I can remember a class where we learned how to write checks, I guess learning to manage money. I’m not really sure because the only thing I remember was just the check part. And shit today, it's not very often you need to write a personal check, so just what was the point in making sure we learned that at such a young age? Why the heck could it not have been taught in a class in high school when we were learning how to bake pumpkin pies and sew a hoodie?! Or how about when they were sending us home with a crying baby doll that was supposed to teach us about parenthood, they could have added in an idea of what to expect when your electric gets turned off, or you get an eviction. Maybe if they had really let us know anything about the hardships that can happen in life, some may have been able to avoid that struggle in their life. I just want to add that the parenting class didn’t teach me how hard it would be to be a parent and the effect on my personal life because my ass got a babysitter for my baby doll for a couple hours so I didn’t have to cancel my plans. SMH, well taught teach, well taught.
I look back and think it's just crazy that someone didn’t sit me down to talk about what I may have been feeling at any point in my life! Not when I was told I was adopted, when I went to school bragging because I had no real clue at the age of 6 what that even meant. Not when I had to go to the hospital with my dad when my dad had broken her ribs. Not when we had to go stay in a woman’s shelter where they told me once we leave we can never go back or tell anyone where we were. Or how about after that time I had got to spend a weekend with my dad after months to years of seeing him, when he promised me that he would be back for Christmas, yet there I sat with wrapped gifts for him waiting for the dad I’d never see again. Fast forward that tragic time to when I had finally found where my dad was living after 30 years just to find out I was 10 months too late because he died from a body eaten up by cancer. Did anyone think to talk to me about feelings and life, hell no.
Needless to say, I didn’t have the best role models growing up , or even the greatest support system when I was young. I will say, I did have 2 people in my family that had an amazing love and who I did wish for Myself the type of love and relationship they had. My grandparents had been together since middle school until the day my grandpa passed when he was in his late 70’s. That’s the type of love that you NEVER see anymore and something that I wish people could find more in life. I will also say, when I said support, I mean more in the emotional, mental, just caring sense. I was fortunate to have a good deal of support when I found myself in hard times trying to provide for a family. But being in a family that was one where you never talked about your feelings, never talked about depression, heartache, etc., well all it did for me was cause even more of the exact things I wasn’t able to talk about.
So here I am, 40 years old , lost wondering what I’m supposed to do, and who do I even talk to. Today just so happened to be my 4 year anniversary with my “fiancé.” I waited past midnight last night to see if he would remember and after 2.5 hours of being in the house alone while he was in the garage all evening, just as he is every single night, I left his card I had got for him on his chair. At some point he finally came in and saw it. Then this morning before he went to work, he told me Happy Anniversary. On his lunch he came home and woke me with a bowl of cereal. After work, well the evening has been just as every evening has been for weeks to months now – he went out to the garage for the night. He did surprisingly come in for us to go to eat (with my grandson too) which I had wanted to go do because I had full intentions on talking about us. However after being talked to and looked at like Im stupid when I asked him something while ordering I knew this wouldn’t work. I’m not sure how I gained the balls to do so, but I did ask him if there was a time that we could set that he would come in from the garage at night and come to bed with me. His response, “We’ll see.” I already knew that was code for “never gonna happen” and surprise surprise since we have been home he's been out in the garage. Shit it's now after midnight, and he’s still never came in.
Our anniversary came and went, and I see no reason to consider that day our anniversary. I know I didn’t go out and do anything spectacular for him but I made sure he had a card that had some real emotional thoughts and feelings in it. He couldn’t even stop at any point in the day and get me something as simple as a card. There was nothing from him that showed the smallest gesture that he loved me and was glad to be with me. Truth be told, if you knew the extent of everything I have come to see in a whole, that I printed off to show him I know as well what he did, or if you knew just how many days there have been that he doesn’t come to bed at all with me, you all would understand why I may feel like it’s the end of the world for not getting a card.
I don’t know what’s the right thing to say or do when it comes to being in situations like this. I don’t know how to shut off feelings, and to just brush shit under the rug and not care. I don’t know how to accept that, “He’s just not that into you,” or “you’ll never be good enough.” I just know that this has been the hardest year of my life because of my heart problems and my relationship, and I can't take another year like this again. But, What do you do?
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