Even before we were dating the Librarian was trying to get me to go to her Lil' Sister's wedding with her ... on the other side of the country. After about the twentieth time she asked me I finally told her how much I'd love to go and see Lil' Sis again, but that the only way I would be able to afford to go was if I got a better better job and someone dropped a lot of money in my lap randomly before September first. It's a pipe dream, but it's what I got.
One weekend the Librarian and I take her girl, Dino, to an amusement park, with her family. While we waited for the kids to finish riding a carousel, the Librarian and her sister, Sister #3 are sitting on a nearby bench and I can tell by the frequent glances my way, they're talking about me. Since the sideways glances my way are accompanied by sideways smiles, I'm assuming I have nothing to worry about. After their chat, I cozy on up to my gal and ask "So what were you saying about me?"
"Oh nothing much," she replied "My sister just wanted to know about you." "Yeah, and what did you tell her?" I asked. "That you're a great guy and that you're working in a cookie factory ... but that you're so much better than that."
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don't lie to your sist ... wait a minute. You really think that don't you? What hell is wrong from with you?!? I'm crap and and this seems to be more than I deserve, and you think I'm better than all this? Coming from ... but from you, saying it with no intent of me hearing it, I believe it ... almost. What the hell is wrong with me? This is the result of being with someone for twelve years who spent every breath, every ounce of her energy putting me down and making me feel bad about myself. Making me doubt every decision I made, including the ones I made about the kids. Especially the one about the kids. I was so afraid to have fun, clean, cook, hell even do things with my kids for fear of being yelled at by her. I'm still afraid. I still constantly hear her voice, yelling at me, before I even decide do anything ... everything, even now, a full year and a half after she moved out.
I adore the Librarian's daughter. I play with her, I entertain her while her mother does her school work. I put her to bed. We read stories. One bed time story I read to her often talks about planting a seashell in the garden to watch it grow. So one week I bring a flower pot filled with dirt and a seashell. We plant the seashell in the pot, just to see if it'll grow. What she doesn't know though is that prior to all this I put in seed to a "money plant" in the dirt. It gets it's name from the fact it has large coin like seed pods. Could also be mistaken for sea shells by a wonder eyed six year old. I do "dad" things with her, which makes me feel guilty because I don't do those things with my kids.
At the same time however, it's also letting me finally do those things with my kids. It's like a practice run with this child, before I do it for real with my own. I don't hear that yelling in my head playing with her girl, so I don't hear how I'm doing it wrong. Then I can do it all over again with my kids, and know there's not going to be yelling because I've proved to that voice inside my head that I can do it. I had been with someone who didn't trust me to do anything, now I'm not only seeing someone who not only appears to think I'm not a complete fucking idiot, but actually treats me like a human being with feelings and even more amazing, she trusts me with the care of her offspring.
Fuck, now there's expectations and stuff. She believes in me, or at least doesn't expect the worst out of me. I suppose I should try to not let her down. I am, well not content, at the cookie factory but ... satisfied in not being in a state of total free fall. I'm not really out of the woods though am I? Maybe if I was getting forty hours a week, but I can't seem to get more than thirty-two, and I never know more than eighteen hours ahead of time if I have to work or not. It's more of a slow bleed than a free fall now. I've cashed out my 401k to stay afloat longer but I'm still spending money faster than I make it and that's just the house payment and other fixed expenses. I know I shouldn't be dating. It's too expensive.
Whoever said "money can't buy happiness" has never been this poor. So I start seriously looking for real work again. Something that I might actually use my degree for.
I apply for jobs here and there. I get an interview for a decent position about an hour away. Somewhere along the line though I get the interview time confused with the time I have to leave, a fact I don't realize until I'm pulling out of the driveway, an hour late. I pull back into the driveway, feeling like the fuck up my ex-wife treated me like.
I collapse onto the couch, trying to figure out how I'm going to own up to this to the one person who seems to have faith in me. I toss my phone on the couch, noticing the little speck of light indicating I have a voice mail. I check it and it's a vendor I worked with from my pre-layoff days asking me to come in and talk to them about helping them out. I have nothing better to do, and I'm already dressed for an interview, so why not?
An hour and a half later I have a real job again. Not a great job, but one I can put on my resume. It's three steps back on the career path I had been on pre-layoff, and the pay is just a crappy as at the cookie factory but at least I won't be mistaken for a Keebler Elf anymore, and full time with benefits.
It took me twenty minutes to pull out of the eight car parking lot because I was sobbing. Yeah, I screwed up, but I also managed to fix that mistake before I had a chance to disappoint her. It felt like a huge victory.
I get home from my first day of work. Grab my mail out of the mailbox. Bill, bill, junk ... Open the one official looking letter. It's an insurance check from when some distracted driver rear ended me months ago. I'd forgotten about it because the damage had been purely cosmetic. I check the date on the check ... August 30th. Well ... Logic be damned, I guess I'm going to the wedding.
This is my life now.
No comments:
Post a Comment