It's my fifteenth wedding anniversary. It's over a year and a half since my husband walked away. It still hurts.
I've been having these rage dreams lately, just every now and then. In them, I'm arguing with a family member (the person changes, and they don't seem to be triggered by actual events). I end up screaming and crying—these gut-wrenching screams and sobs—and they ignore me, utterly unmoved while I'm humiliated by my impotence and lack of control.
So, yeah... that's not good. A lot of it is probably due to current events, anxiety over the move and the things Still Not Done, but the feeling of impotence has been a theme since the end of the marriage. In many ways, I'm still in shock. Something that meant so much to me and that I would have done anything in the world to save... but I couldn't. Either I didn't get the opportunity or I missed it.
Even now, the recurring question is "Why couldn't he love me?" Of course, we talked extensively about that last year, so logically I understand why he stopped loving me. But I don't understand it on an illogical level. On the level where you love somebody just because you know them so well and they know you so well that you're part of each other. We lived together for sixteen years. For me, that's more time spent together than with anybody else. He's shaped me more than anybody else—He shaped my family.
I remind myself daily of him in little things I do and say, habits and phrases I picked up from him. As a family, we continue to tell the in-jokes he created, and our playlists are full of music he introduced us to. He had so much positive impact on us, it's impossible for me to move on from him, because there is so much of him that I should be taking with me.
So logically, I'm no longer in love with my husband. So much happened and there's been so much pain... but illogically, he's my family, he's part of me, and I'll always care deeply for him.
It's brutal then, to consider this from his perspective. How could he walk away after sixteen years of me being part of him? The simplest answer is that I'm not part of him. He adored me early on, far more into me than I was into him... but did he ever really allow me into himself? Did he always wall me out and I never realised? Or is it purely that other circumstances took over and it didn't matter. Either way, it's deeply unsettling when the person who knows you best in the world considers you dispensable.
That's really the recipe for the anxiety and depression I've had since January 2018: A combination of the ultimate rejection and of losing a huge part of myself. (The functional aspects of suddenly not having a partner in life are not insignificant either.) The therapist I was seeing in the States said I may never get over my husband, but I can accept that grief and balance it out with the rest of my life.
Sure enough, it's not all doom and gloom. I still have a family, even if the dynamic is radically different and functionality is a lot harder. For all the confidence I've lost, I've gained some too as I continue to achieve things on my own... I'm terribly insecure about the things I've yet to achieve, fearing that I just can't, and it's good for me to look back on what I have already managed despite those fears. Like driving down narrow Cornish lanes! (We'll ignore the couple of occasions this week when I made a wrong turn into too small a space and made a terrible mess of getting the car around to get out—the important thing is, I did get myself out both times, even if it took several minutes.)
Being single itself isn't bad at all, probably because I'm not looking for love. I quite enjoy online dating, even if I don't go on many dates. It's interesting to talk to other people my age who are single, who have had to shed a dream of happily ever after or who are pursuing an alternative to the traditional domestic bliss. Actually going out with somebody in a purely adult setting is a bonus... it's nice to be a woman rather than a mother sometimes.
Marriage was very good for me and I have often thought that I would do better by remarrying. But I have never fallen in love easily. Falling in love with my husband required moving in with him and having a nervous breakdown. (Long story.) As candid as I am, I'm always wary of letting people in, and having the children is only going to exacerbate that. Maybe it will happen even though I don't expect it, but I'm not going to try to find love again. When the kids leave home, that could change... it's only ten years before my youngest would go to university, and I've no reason to think I'll be too decrepit to enjoy a new a relationship or a new start at 51!
Until then, I'll just take fun and romance where I find it. I'll celebrate my family and continue building my life. There's a void that will never really be filled, but that grief is part of me now and I must find the value in that. I'm still looking for who I am.
Not all those who wander are lost, but since I'm lost, I may as well wander.
Wednesday 11 September 2019
Wednesday 4 September 2019
Making a House a Home
I've been putting off posting due to The Overwhelming Nature Of All Things.
We have our own place now—a three bedroom ground floor flat in a new barn conversion. In the end, it was really our only option after another place we applied for suddenly decided that they wouldn't take pets after all.
That said, it's a lovely place that ticked off a lot of the things on our 'want' list: a living room large enough to fit our enormous sofa, a village with a primary school and a corner shop—both very impressive—and an amazing view. We're on a hillside, with nothing but fields and valley out back, and while our garden is small, the back wall is low enough to climb on while the side walls offer some parkour opportunities!
The downsides? Well, the rent is more expensive than I was hoping and living at a brand new address poses its own problems as not everybody can find us. But the biggest issue is that there's no storage space. No loft, no garage, no cellar, no cloakroom, no broom cupboard, no linen cupboard.... Not even a utility room. We have an airing cupboard, which by default houses my laundry baskets, but it doesn't have shelves for anything else. I have an en suite shower in my room, so I'm storing the mop and bucket in there.
The first thing we did was buy and build a large shed, just so we would have extra space to put our boxes when they showed up. My father spent his anniversary building that with me, but it turned out to be a mere taster for what was to come....
A week after we left the States, a moving company came and packed up our belongings. Everything was then shipped across the Atlantic, taken through customs and finally driven down to Cornwall. They couldn't get the truck into the courtyard in front of the flats, so they drove down the field behind us, and everything was unloaded over my back wall and taken in through the patio doors.
That's when I learned that the furniture had been been disassembled.
This didn't happen when we moved to the States. It seems that the general UK policy is not to take furniture apart, while the general US policy is to disassemble and reassemble at the other end. My parents (who did the US to UK relocation ten years ago) told me that their furniture had also been taken apart, but the movers rebuilt it for them.
Nobody did any reassembling for me. The moving crew was only two people and they had their work cut out for them just unloading the container. To make matters worse, the packers hadn't provided any indication of where the hardware was. Sometimes screws were taped to the item. Sometimes... not. I picked up a towel that had been left loose rather than packed in a box, and the screws for the cat tree fell out—luckily they had 'armarkat' printed on, because there were no labels. In fact labelling was not the packers' strong suit: every box was labeled, but the labels were not indicative of everything that might be inside the box.
I complained to the shipping company which triggered a lot of arguing over whether the US or the UK side was at fault. Theoretically, it's their responsibility, so I should wait until they send somebody out to put the furniture together. Realistically, we have to live here. We need tables and shelves and beds... (Never mind the fact that I slept on a mattress on a floor for two weeks before I found the screws for my bed.)
I'm the tallest person in the family at 5'2" and the only adult. The children don't have the first clue what to do for unpacking and setting up a house. They've wanted to help, but unless I'm literally walking them through what they need to do step by step, there's precious little they can contribute. We can't even do general chores when there are boxes everywhere (and we essentially had to restock our cleaning supplies from scratch anyway.)
Therefore, for the past month, and largely singlehandedly, I've been assembling furniture without instructions, unpacking boxes into what furniture we do have, purchasing various storage solutions from Amazon, chasing down the parcels when the delivery men couldn't find our address (on three occasions, a package was dropped off at a random house in the village), assembling those storage solutions once I found them (with instructions. Luxury!), unpacking more boxes, getting rid of things because we went from a four bedroom house to a three bedroom flat and we don't have room for everything—and basically ignoring emails, phone calls and any other forms of message because I don't have time to sort out anything else (like, um, utilities. The fairies will keep our water and electricity going, right?)
It's been overwhelming, and there were some pretty dark moments. Aside from one break for an old friend's wedding (which was lovely!), I haven't really done anything social. So much other stuff has fallen by the wayside that I do a lot of panicking that I've forgotten something vitally important. Such as the kids' school uniform which has been halfway pulled together this week. It's their first day tomorrow and they'll definitely have a complete outfit each for that, but they need more of everything and the PE kit didn't occur to me at all.
But tomorrow is also one month since we got the keys and four weeks since our things arrived... and this place does feel like a home now. The bedrooms are still a disaster, the television doesn't work because I never found the apple TV or aerial, and until I figure out how to reassemble my desk, we won't have a functional printer either... but we've gone through all the boxes and the kitchen, living room, garden and bathrooms have all taken shape. The cats have their nooks and we're finding ours...
I still feel that I can't see half of what needs doing, and that's terrifying. But I'm excited and happy to be living here. After all, the view from here is pretty damn awesome.
We have our own place now—a three bedroom ground floor flat in a new barn conversion. In the end, it was really our only option after another place we applied for suddenly decided that they wouldn't take pets after all.
That said, it's a lovely place that ticked off a lot of the things on our 'want' list: a living room large enough to fit our enormous sofa, a village with a primary school and a corner shop—both very impressive—and an amazing view. We're on a hillside, with nothing but fields and valley out back, and while our garden is small, the back wall is low enough to climb on while the side walls offer some parkour opportunities!
The downsides? Well, the rent is more expensive than I was hoping and living at a brand new address poses its own problems as not everybody can find us. But the biggest issue is that there's no storage space. No loft, no garage, no cellar, no cloakroom, no broom cupboard, no linen cupboard.... Not even a utility room. We have an airing cupboard, which by default houses my laundry baskets, but it doesn't have shelves for anything else. I have an en suite shower in my room, so I'm storing the mop and bucket in there.
The first thing we did was buy and build a large shed, just so we would have extra space to put our boxes when they showed up. My father spent his anniversary building that with me, but it turned out to be a mere taster for what was to come....
A week after we left the States, a moving company came and packed up our belongings. Everything was then shipped across the Atlantic, taken through customs and finally driven down to Cornwall. They couldn't get the truck into the courtyard in front of the flats, so they drove down the field behind us, and everything was unloaded over my back wall and taken in through the patio doors.
That's when I learned that the furniture had been been disassembled.
This didn't happen when we moved to the States. It seems that the general UK policy is not to take furniture apart, while the general US policy is to disassemble and reassemble at the other end. My parents (who did the US to UK relocation ten years ago) told me that their furniture had also been taken apart, but the movers rebuilt it for them.
Nobody did any reassembling for me. The moving crew was only two people and they had their work cut out for them just unloading the container. To make matters worse, the packers hadn't provided any indication of where the hardware was. Sometimes screws were taped to the item. Sometimes... not. I picked up a towel that had been left loose rather than packed in a box, and the screws for the cat tree fell out—luckily they had 'armarkat' printed on, because there were no labels. In fact labelling was not the packers' strong suit: every box was labeled, but the labels were not indicative of everything that might be inside the box.
I complained to the shipping company which triggered a lot of arguing over whether the US or the UK side was at fault. Theoretically, it's their responsibility, so I should wait until they send somebody out to put the furniture together. Realistically, we have to live here. We need tables and shelves and beds... (Never mind the fact that I slept on a mattress on a floor for two weeks before I found the screws for my bed.)
I'm the tallest person in the family at 5'2" and the only adult. The children don't have the first clue what to do for unpacking and setting up a house. They've wanted to help, but unless I'm literally walking them through what they need to do step by step, there's precious little they can contribute. We can't even do general chores when there are boxes everywhere (and we essentially had to restock our cleaning supplies from scratch anyway.)
Therefore, for the past month, and largely singlehandedly, I've been assembling furniture without instructions, unpacking boxes into what furniture we do have, purchasing various storage solutions from Amazon, chasing down the parcels when the delivery men couldn't find our address (on three occasions, a package was dropped off at a random house in the village), assembling those storage solutions once I found them (with instructions. Luxury!), unpacking more boxes, getting rid of things because we went from a four bedroom house to a three bedroom flat and we don't have room for everything—and basically ignoring emails, phone calls and any other forms of message because I don't have time to sort out anything else (like, um, utilities. The fairies will keep our water and electricity going, right?)
It's been overwhelming, and there were some pretty dark moments. Aside from one break for an old friend's wedding (which was lovely!), I haven't really done anything social. So much other stuff has fallen by the wayside that I do a lot of panicking that I've forgotten something vitally important. Such as the kids' school uniform which has been halfway pulled together this week. It's their first day tomorrow and they'll definitely have a complete outfit each for that, but they need more of everything and the PE kit didn't occur to me at all.
But tomorrow is also one month since we got the keys and four weeks since our things arrived... and this place does feel like a home now. The bedrooms are still a disaster, the television doesn't work because I never found the apple TV or aerial, and until I figure out how to reassemble my desk, we won't have a functional printer either... but we've gone through all the boxes and the kitchen, living room, garden and bathrooms have all taken shape. The cats have their nooks and we're finding ours...
I still feel that I can't see half of what needs doing, and that's terrifying. But I'm excited and happy to be living here. After all, the view from here is pretty damn awesome.
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