Moored

[HaWho]

Things are quiet over here, eerily so. H keeps to his room and yet not always. When he is out of the dorm room he is back to his old favorite spot in the house. Every time I see him there, I am visibly startled. He gets me every time. It's like one of the ghosts that pop out in the Sixth Sense. Sometimes, out of my lips slips a surprised "oh, you're out of your room."

Other changes over the last month: he sometimes looks me in the eye. And he now always "sees" the dog and talks to him the way he used to do. It is endearing.

Last week, when I mentioned to him that he was always behind a closed door he told me he is sick a lot and "stays hidden." I do think this is a child coming forward. For those who have followed along, he was not well cared for as a child (at all) and I know he was frequently treated as a nuisance when he was sick. I am guessing he is in his safe place.

The kids and I offer to bring him tea or offer him help otherwise. (My boys are amazingly kind when I am sick!)

I forgot to mention that when we were back east, the first night we shared a bed, h made a derogatory comment about my pajamas. And indeed they were (intentionally) unattractive. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't wearing food stained sweats to bed, but the pjs were, well, let's just say, very comfy.

H made a snide comment that he guessed it wasn't going to be a teddy kind of night. I ignored it completely but it did shock me. Had I a quicker tongue I would have truth darted him and reminded him of his oh-so-charming letter. The idea of wearing anything sexy around him makes me feel like I would be playing out a scene from Mrs. Robinson.

A few months back one of my cousin's from Europe reached out and asked to come visit in the spring. I have only met him once. I had huge anxiety over it given h's reaction to family visiting last spring. I was trying to come up with an excuse to spare myself the experience but I just couldn't. I want to see them. They are good people and this will be one of the few times (maybe the only time) my kids will meet his kid. It may be the only time I meet their girl, too!

On a very sad note, they are coming 12 hrs. via plane, [with child in tow] to see me and h's family can't be bothered to visit. My MIL has never visited. She says she cannot leave her cat with her h. Ugh. My 105 lb. sister comes on a 12 hr. plane trip alone with her special needs son and my MIL can't leave her cat?!? My family is just tougher stock.

Fortunately cousin's wife does not speak English too well. And my cousin's English is decent but not stellar. I was hoping cousin would think the weird conversations w/h were due to his own misunderstanding of the English language. But now cousin says he is brushing up on his English and so is his wife! Ahhhh. And over the last few months email correspondence with cousin shows his English is indeed improving at an alarming rate!! Maybe I can convince h to learn and speak a language completely foreign to the rest of us?

I was also going to tell cousin that in America all h's sleep as far away from their wives as possible. Unfortunately, they are also visiting my other two siblings so they will see this is false. I will have to settle with telling them that things just work differerently here on the west coast.

I never told h they were coming. I just couldn't deal with it yet. At Xmas dinner my siblings started to discuss the visit and then I just dropped it on h that they were coming here, too. He seemed to take it well. He mentioned that they should see x,y and z before they leave. It did not seem to produce the same anxiety in him that he had last year. We'll see how that goes as the date approaches.

If I am getting a read that he's going to go back to his hunger strike (because he thinks I am poisoning him), I will recommend that he get away from the stress of it all. This will be hugely embarrassing and insulting that he isn't here to meet them but may be necessary for my own sanity.

Otherwise, the MLC beat goes on . . .