Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Just a Post

I had trouble sleeping last night. Brenda had gone to sleep on the couch and I did a little lesson writing for the new trimester. An hour later I took a prescription sleeping pill. Forty-five minutes later, another. Another forty-five minutes after that, a third. I had so much trouble getting going this morning. I was practically staggering as I got ready for work.

I feel like I am barely hanging on.

We woke up late on Sunday. It was one of those rare nights where she came to bed in the early hours from her place on the couch and we snuggled in our half conscious sleep. We woke up snuggling. I told her let's just skip church.

Not going to make a habit of it. But she needed a break, and frankly I did too.

I am so tired.

This current situation is set up to let Brenda heal. She isn't being particularly mean or anything. She is fixing supper, doing laundry, all the usual stuff.

But toward me she seems either angry or indifferent.

How can it be that I feel lonely? I feel so unbearably sad?

I want to do whatever my Lord asks of me, but this marriage seems to be such a heavy burden.

I have been a jerk. I have hurt her, decades ago, and now I am paying a price that seems to bankrupt me.

I was immature. Now I'm growing up. And it hurts.

She has much good in her. But it isn't for me anymore. Will it be someday?

Perhaps our marriage will heal. This week she is in a bad place because she is being forced to quit her job. I try not to think of the goodbyes she is saying/doing at work.

I had a student stop me in the hall today. Awkward kid. One of those with emotional, and social disabilities.

Good kid. He fell in beside me as I was striding down the hall. I barely slowed to allow him to keep up.

"Mr. Greenleaf... Can I ask you something?"

"Sure D_______, what is it?"

"Well, I hope I'm not out of line, or that you'll get mad or anything, but I was wondering... You seem sad this year."

I stopped and turned.

"Was it OK to ask that?"

"Well, I don't feel comfortable talking about my personal life with students, but I can see you are a good boy who just cares about me. Thank you. I've just got some things on my mind, that's all. You are a pretty perceptive kid, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess. I think that babies can always tell how people feel. I think most people grow out of it. I never have. I can always tell how people are really feeling, even if no one else does."

"You're a good kid, D________. Catch you later."

Sweet kid. I wish what I felt didn't show.

She has a very strong sense of responsibility and wants to see the task of raising the boys through. She does not think I can do it alone.

Additionally, the legal mess with Jeremiah has tied her down. She insisted on being his sponsor for citizenship, partly because of her lower income it makes his getting social security benefits while being granted citizenship easier, but mostly because she had more time to see the lawyers and such. If she leaves that creates a real legal mess for Jeremiah. She could take him with her, but I wouldn't allow it and besides she really doesn't want that. She wants to run away from all of this and that would be just taking the biggest part with her.

There is the fact that if we divorced she would have no health insurance, and she has a fibrous tumor in her uterus and a hemmoraghic cyst on an ovary. She may need surgery.

There is a part of her that cares what people think. She doesn't like where all of this puts her.

There is a part of her that cares for me. I don't know if it is love. Perhaps a little. There is also guilt and shame, and doing penance makes her feel that she is nobler than if she simply left.

She really doesn't want to leave me in a mess. Though I am in one already.

There's the dog, which she loves.

All of this sounds stupid.

I grieve so much for my marriage. I am such a wimp to want her.

I want her happy, healthy. Even if that means she leaves me when she gets on her feet.

I was walking around the cemetery today. I paused... told the Lord that I am so sad right now that I can hardly bear it. That it is almost like when Willy died.

I told Him that I know he understands sadness, betrayal, and I appreciate it.

I know that so many people in the world have it so much harder than I... still... I feel I can hardly breathe.

This is a tough week for Brenda. I am forcing her to quit her job, quit seeing this other man. She does not like to be forced. She is going to AA meetings every night. Her sponsor has told her to do 90 meetings in 90 days.

I think she is planning to hold on until Isaac graduates.

Isaac is a Junior. He graduates a year from June.

Jeremiah's green card should be available in February. Then we start with his citizenship process, which might take as long as five years.

So, the expiration date for this little half gallon of misery is June 2009.

Sheesh. I'm so full of shit. Even in stating simple facts I have to craft it into some sort of weird layered phrase. No wonder she is tired of me.

8 comments:

Ame said...

Okay ... well ... for starters ... NORMAL is what you are!!!!!!!

Next ... comparing your "bad" with someone else's "bad" is the ONE place where you should NEVER go ... we don't choose our hell ... we just live with the hell we're given. (Just on a side note, because I'm kinda on a *tacky* roll today anyway ... can you imagine us walking into the required store called "Choose Your Hell?" And we walk in, and there are all these "hells" to choose ... and we have to choose one ... but we don't get to see what's behind all the doors till after we own it.) Okay ... anyway ... a widow loosing her cat to a flying car on the street is in as much pain as you, my friend. Don't compare. It will sink you everytime.

For the rest ... will have to wait ... need to put my Oldest to bed ;).

Ame said...

You've been bruised and wounded by her transgressions ... are being punished and wounded in an effort to bring her peace and healing.

Sounds like some One else I know. (Is 53:5)

That does not make you weak any more than it makes Jesus weak. It does not make you a wimp any more than it makes God a wimp to crave for us to all love him, even the worst of the worst.

"I want her happy, healthy. Even if that means she leaves me when she gets on her feet.

You know ... as I've been reading thru the OT about the kings ... I'm so struck by the kings who honored God and then fell away from Him at the very ends of their lives. One of the many things that strikes me about all that ... is that God honors their faithfulness to Him when they are faithful ... and He KNOWS, because He is God, that they will turn from Him someday ... yet He STILL chose to honor their faithfulness over and over and over.

Hummm . . .

You are not making her quit her job. You are standing by firm boundaries and expecting her to honor them. And, it sucks when, in doing so, we must enforce the consequences of the choices of an adult. It's easy to do that for a child; that's normal. It just sucks to have to do that for an adult, especially your spouse. I struggled with that for a very long time in counseling ... VERY hard for me.

It's not you she's tired of ... it's just life ... and herself.

There is a season for everything under the sun ... and, I personally believe, there is a season to step back from church for awhile. Sometimes, church is not a place of healing.

ukok said...

The other day, my daughter and I were shoppig in the supermarket and I put this enormous pack of toilet tissue in our trolley....because it was a good money saver for my one parent family.

My daughter was so embarrassed that the trolley was full of loo roll...she turned to me and said 'Mum, why do we need to much loo roll. It's embarrassing!'

To which I, throughly defeated by our financial predicament replied,

"Because I'm full of shit, OKAY!?!"

Poor kid!Well, she is 16, she's used to me by now I suppose.

It was just one of those day's, y'know?

You, on the other hand, are not full of shit.

Gigi said...

I am such a wimp to want her.


or.......you are just stronger than alot of us.....in our weakness He gets stronger right....praying

Curious Servant said...

Today is another counseling session.

These are often pretty rough.

Amrita said...

What you are feeling is natural. Healing hurts and making up for past errors is painful and hard work i know from experience. Satan hounded me for months.

Glad B is going to AA. Could she see a Christian counsellor.

The insaurance and kids issues are troublesome, hope they get sorted out.

D was so sweet.Kids are very perceptive.

Divorce is not a pleasant thing, and should never be. Maybe B will hurt enough to realize this want to make amends in her life and the lives of whom she affects.

Amrita said...

PS I agree what Ame and the other friends said. You are not a wimp and neither are you full of shit.You are a brave strong dertermined child of God.

When God 's children are unfaithful to Him, including me, He feels the same way. Jesus came to his own and His own rejected Him.

Anonymous said...

You know, I was reading this and i thought...

toothache.

Odd, I know, but hear me out. You know how it starts twinging, then it swells, then it just hurts all the damn time, and eventually the pain gets so you can't concentrate on anything else, and you sit there with ice packs, swallowing ibuprofen like candy, and all you can say is "ow", very softly, a million times, and it doesn't help?

well, ow, for you, friend.

in the desert of the real, i wince in sympathy.

ow.ow.ow.