Well, the year sure started out well. I was employed and involved with someone casually in the beginning of the year and felt like things were on the upswing. As the year progressed, I lost my job and the casual relationship became a bit less casual, until it got really great and fun and then inexplicably ultimately it crashed and burned. While I knew what I was getting into I never imagined it would be something so difficult to recover from. Thankfully I got a new and better job around that time otherwise, I’m not sure how well I would be doing today.
When you have spent your forty-something years being mainly concerned with self-confidence, independence and career success it doesn’t really feel that important to have someone else in your life to share it with. I have good friends and a decent support system, and that was enough for me. Now and again I would be involved with someone here and there and think, well, that’s a nice bonus to my already pretty good independent life. I can’t say I’ve had a relationship quite like the last one before where the person was over all of the time and helped with so many things, and I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to give that up. I spent so much of my life proud of being independent up until then, that I didn’t realize how much I was missing out on relying on someone else to do stuff for me. Mind you, I just came to this conclusion while I was washing the dishes, and this guy never did the dishes, so I’m not sure why this was the magical moment that made me think of this.
What I’ve come to realize about myself is that I need to be working. It’s important to me in so many ways to be doing something I enjoy doing, that I do well, and that allows me personal and financial independence. While my current job does, or will do soon, all of those things, there are things in my personal life that I absolutely hate doing, most notably the bullshit around the house. I hate coming home and having to make something to eat. I love to cook, don’t get me wrong, and I’m good at it, but it would be nice to come home and have stuff done for me. If you’re paying any attention, you know where I’m going with this I’m sure. I need a househusband. I want to come home to clean organized house, and I want the trash taken out, and the dishes done, and my clothes laundered and the bed made, and the floor swept. Is this a bad thing to want? Is there anything wrong with wanting someone to hand you a cocktail when you walk in the door? Now, the last guy, while he was over a lot didn’t do that much around the house… but he did reach the stuff on the top shelves for me and he did carry my laundry up the stairs for me. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure he wanted the same thing as I did, which was someone else to do crap around the house, which neither of us wanted to do.
Thank g-d for my OCD roommate! We are strictly platonic, mutually so. However, he works out of the house and does all that crap I hate to do! I have never had so much counter or table space as I do now. I set something down on the coffee table, and if I’m not quick enough, it gets scooped right up! It’s nice. He does the grocery shopping, and all I have to do is loan him my car so he can run his own errands too. He takes out the trash and he takes turns with me doing the dishes. It’s great. So, what I realized between the last guy and my roommate is two things. I enjoy having company around the house. I like coming home to a little bit of activity. I like having stuff to do.
What I also realized is that I don’t need the kind of constant activity that I had with the last guy. While I miss him now and again, and while there are a lot of things he made it hard for me to do without getting sad, listen to certain kinds of music, watch certain television shows, play yahtzee or backgammon (yes the actual games and the other…), I don’t miss him being in my face all the time. I don’t miss him following me to the bathroom and never having a moment of privacy. Sometimes it was fun, but sometimes it was like – dude… get outta here. I don’t miss his endless diatribes. I don’t miss his ADHD, I don’t miss him demonstrating martial arts moves, etc etc. All of those things were entertaining sometimes, but now that I have a little peace, and some really good full nights of sleep, I recognize it really was a bit much to take.
What I know now as a result of this past year’s drama is what I want in addition to what I don’t want. It seems like at this age it should have been a lot more intuitive, or simple to figure out, but it isn’t that easy. Sometimes you have to experience the extreme of something to know how much of it is too much, or how much you are missing.
Anyway, it was a rough couple of months, so I couldn’t write anything without being full of emotions that I couldn’t organize or contain, so now that I have regained the ability to find the humor amid the bullshit… I wish a wonderful, happy and healthy new year to you all!
