I didn't read the page before, but loved the alarm idea! My H would have loved that too, as I am a "hop out of bed and get my day going" person as well.
Things aren't going well over here. Adn I am behind on your threads! But I will catch up! Miss you Jennifer!
Maya is right, you are sorely missed. It feels as if you've been away for ages. I hope it is all going very well and look forward to hearing your news.
Wendy
Me: 51 H: 52 T: 23 yrs M: 19 yrs S18, D16, S14 (special needs) PA: 2003/2004 Piecing: 2004 on Suspect H had EA: 8/2012-12/2012
Hi, y’all, and Happy New Year! Thanks for checking in on me. It’s nice to be missed.
Since I’ve been back I’ve been lurking around on the boards, keeping up with people here and there, but suffice it to say that I have a LOT of catching up to do.
I have so much to report, and not much at all. We drove (13 hours) to Ga. on Wednesday before Christmas, arriving at my parents’ house around 11 p.m. The next two days were spend furiously shopping, and hanging out with my family, which was fun and relaxing. I am one of those extra-lucky people who have a family that doesn’t cause holiday stress, but takes it away. I absolutely adore them, they adore me, and we spend most of the time laughing and talking together. At 3 on Christmas morning, I finally collapsed into bed, having wrapped my last excess and stuffed S’s stocking.
Christmas day was special and more fun than ever. In my family, everyone has a stocking, and the stockings are full of useful but fun things like eye-soothing masks and bubble bath, as well as gags (S. got a bag of spare body parts [ears and the like] in his stocking, for example, and I got an office voodoo kit, reversible for male and female offenders). We do the stockings first, taking up to an hour and a half to unpack them and laugh and share and play with all the goodies while trying on any disguises (my BIL got a pack of mustaches, which were hilarious) and posing for photos. There’s a quick coffee/breakfast break, then on to the wrapped presents. By 2 p.m. we had almost finished opening presents. Then it was time for my sis and her H to go pick up H’s kids from their mother’s and so we had another 2 hours of opening presents with the kids. It was exhausting, but we were all so absolutely happy!
After two days of recovery and more hanging out with my parents and my sister’s family, S. and I dove up to the mountains (with my mom but in a separate car) to stay in my parents’ new house in the mountains, where we’d planned to stay a few days then drive back up to NYC to celebrate the New Year. Mom stayed two days and left us on Wednesday. S. and I went for a strenuous 8-mile (and climbing more than 2,000 ft of elevation) hike that day, and the weather was perfect. We were having such a good time, the house was so wonderful, and we were so comfortable that we decided to stay on together through NYE and drive back to NY on NYD.
Well, all this time, everything is wonderful, S. and I are close, he is having a great time with my family, we are loving and affectionate, and on Christmas night, after long pauses and waiting on my part (yes, I was fishing), he said ILY. In the mountains, we had a great time, antiques shopping, walking in the national forest behind the house, playing Scrabble up in the sunroom while looking at the sunset over the entire mountain range (the house has 360 degree views of the mountains), and cooking fabulous food and drinking from the case of wine we brought with us.
NYE day we spent driving around looking at houses and views, getting out to hike some, and then went to the closest supermarket (15 miles away) to shop for our NYE meal. We got home, took an hour to pack up our things (because we were leaving the next morning and didn’t want to spoil after-dinner by packing), then started cooking dinner. On the menu: Fresh linguini with porcini mushroom and fresh asparagus parmesan cream sauce, green salad with black olives, tomatoes, mushrooms, julienned carrots, shaved parmesan, and my famous lemon/French mustard/secret ingredient dressing, and Italian bread with rosemary. A close friend we stopped to visit on the way to the mtns had given us a limited-run bottle of Chianti (he is an expert Italian cook and aficionado of Italian wines), which we opened with our dinner, and we finished with a not-so-related dessert of rainbow sherbet, key lime cookies, and chilled Muscat. It was lovely.
So, we are having a romantic dinner, a lovely time, etc.,etc., and FIVE MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT, S. decided he wants to turn on the TV and watch the ball drop in Times Square. I was mortified, and did not have the wherewithal to relax and go with it. I just cringed at the idea, and withdrew within myself, the whole time wondering what to do, because I was thinking “HOW UNROMANTIC” and yet didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid of ruining the evening. I gave a few lame hints that I didn’t really want to watch TV, but basically shut up, not knowing what else to do and not able to gather my game face. What happened next was worse than anything I could have said.
The house sits on a mountain between two valleys, and I was hoping that they’d have fireworks in either of the two, so I got up to go see, not wanting to watch TV. He just kept watching, commenting here and there, and because I had gone upstairs to get a better view, he called up “Two minutes!” I came down, and sat on the couch next to him, and when the countdown came and he looked at me I must have been wearing the most awful face, because his expression changed to disbelief and we sat there staring at each other as midnight came. About 10 seconds went by with both of us not knowing what to do, and I finally managed to choke out, “Aren’t you going to kiss me?” We kissed, hugged very tightly, and then all hell broke loose. There was no fighting, just disbelief and utter disappointment on both of our parts.
The worst part was, there was no undoing it once it happened. We couldn’t even speak to each other – it was this deafening silence and complete paralysis for both of us. It was as though someone had come in right at midnight as we were celebrating and said that something truly awful had happened. We finally managed to talk, and I explained what was going on for me, and he explained what was going on for him, and said how awful he felt, that he didn’t see it coming, and all the preparation, all the cooking, all the beauty and loveliness of the day had evaporated as he turned to me, expecting to see a happy face, and as he put it, “I watched you withdrawing, drawing away from me, and I was dumbfounded.”
There were many more conversations in the car on the way back up, and we’ve been back a week now, but I’ll save those till later. We’re OK, just strained and still somewhat awkward. We’ll get through it, and for now we’re just busy and that’s OK because we need some time apart.
I know, I deserve some big whacks. But if I could erase those five minutes and have them to do all over again, I’d be praying for some kind of divine intervention. The weird thing is, neither of us has a TV, and we’re pretty anti-TV, and so the idea of a TV ringing in our new year didn’t seem congruous with either or our philosophies… whatever. I’m not going to try to analyze it right now.
I’ll get around to other threads in due time – for now I’m just trying to keep my head above water, and to get my goals into writing for the new year.
So great to have you back. Wonderful to read your thread and then.... that "oh dear" moment. I thoroughly understand the desire to UNDO those minutes. Ugh.
Try not to beat yourself up about this. There were so many other wonderful memories and experiences that you shared.
That said, I think this is (sadly for you) a wonderful example for ALL of us about having fixed expectations. And of having expectations without letting the other person KNOW.
Who's to say what romance is? Maybe for him, sitting in the mountains with you and getting a New Year's postcard from home...well that may have been very romantic for him.
I am not lecturing. I know how often I have flashed my disappointment to my H. I know the feeling of wishing more than anything that I could call it back.... Breathe and move on. Mostly, forgive yourself.
You have been missed. Oh my, how you have been missed. Welcome home.
SO nice to see you, Maya! Thanks for the kind words.
So wouldn't you know - three minutes back on the boards and I get myself into a situation where I need to come screaming back for help. Well, that's what we're here for, right?
S. just called me from work to check in about plans for tonight (which I asked him to do this morning as he was leaving my house). He said "I don't have any plans for tonight, so I'm going to come home." I asked if he didn't want to go out and DO something. He waffled, hemmed, hawed, and I sat stonily, because I can be a brat and because he called me at 8 last night to say he was going out for beers with a friend after work, and he never makes plans with me, and waaaaah.
So anyway, after a painful 10 minutes of negotiation, during which there were silences, sighs, awkward starts and stops, and "we could"s, we finally decided to meet for dinner and then go to a movie.
The thing that chaps my knickers is that I am the LAST person he thinks about making plans with. I mean, I specifically asked him to call so that we could make a plan for tonight (and I asked him because he works on a daily deadline and only he would know when he could take a few minutes' break and talk), and so when he calls, he says he hasn't made any OTHER plans, and so his plan is to come home.
Part of me knows that this is his way of communicating that nothing else (including plans with me) has come across his desk, and so the default setting is to come home. But the other part of me wants to scream "SO THINK OF SOMETHING AND ASK ME TO DO IT!" or at the very least, "SO RESPOND TO MY SUGGESTION THAT WE GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING WITH SOME SORT OF ENTHUSIASM!"
I think I've answered my own question, the answer to which is, we need to sit down and come up with lists of things (a la Harville Hendrix and Gary Chapman) we would like to do for each other and things we'd like the other to do. Mine would be ASK ME OUT ON A DATE every friggin once in a while! As Maya so eloquently puts above (thank you, Maya), I need to do better about letting him know what I want, and better about not pouting when I don't get it.
I lightly said, during the course of this strained and impossible conv., that I thought we'd go out and do something since we hadn't done anything in a while, to which he replied, "What do you mean we haven't done anything? We just spend a week in Georgia."
Quote: I lightly said, during the course of this strained and impossible conv., that I thought we'd go out and do something since we hadn't done anything in a while, to which he replied, "What do you mean we haven't done anything? We just spend a week in Georgia."
Sigh. Does ANYbody see what I mean here?
No, but I see what he means! He just spent a week travelling with you and now you're mad he isn't asking you out on the town tonite? When you know he's kind of a homebody anyway who needs his time alone?
You are crazymaking here - what's it all about?
As for NYE - I AM going to whack you, J. Speak up when something comes up - DON'T do that swallow-it-and-martyr-yourself=and -then-get-pissed-he-didn't-read-your-mind-thing! (I know it well - runs in my family! )
Imagine what would have happened on NYE if, when S turned on the TV, you had said "oh, honey, let's just watch the fireworks instead?" Either he would have said "okay" - and you would have had what you wanted - or he would have said "oh, please, I used to LOVE watching the ball drop when I was a kid" - and you would have felt better about it. Instead, you let your ASSumptions that watching the TV meant you wouldn't get the romantic moment you had built yourself up for ruin the romantic moment that could have been.
As for tonight - speak up! If he calls and says "no plans have materialized so I'm going home" either say "good, I'm going out" or say "I thought we talked this morning about doing something together tonite" or say "does that mean you want to be visited by a naked nymph around, say, 10 o'clock?"
I know it's hard - when you have been the rejected one, speaking up for what you want is hard - it feels risky. But what is REALLY risky is continuing to handle things the way you have been.
)