I'm home

 Saturday, Jan 6, 2024

Three years past the insurrection and while my mind and social media feed is full of horribleness, I've also had some weird feelings and thoughts recently. Good weird, though.

Immediately before and after the new year, I had the weird feeling that "everything is okay". I am pretty sure it wasn't the edibles kicking in early (you never know), but it was a lovely relaxing of my chest from the constant constricting feeling of anxiety in my ribs and a calm I haven't felt in years. I am hoping this is an omen of good things to come in 2024 and the beginning of the end of Sweet Potato Hitler.

The second weird feeling I had was the thought - out of blue while I was wrestling with anxiety being around George - of "this is my house".

Now, this is odd. I have lived her for 22 years and my name is on the house. It is legally my house and my money did help pay for part of it. I helped pick out all the colors and appliances in it, I clean it as best I can and I am grateful whenever I see it after we get home from a trip out of town.

But this was different. I had the thought that I needed to realize that this is MY home. MY house. Not just one I helped keep up, but it is MINE. Now, of course, not all mine, but it's almost like I had never allowed myself to feel that way about a house because we moved so much as a child (8 times before I left for college). Maybe I had put up a wall to not really "settle in", plus George has made it clear that we can't afford to retire here and we'll have to move one day. That just guts me and I think I went off on him yesterday because he gets so weird when I say I want to live here til I die. 

The other place it is coming from is that I have always felt that I am here "at the pleasure of his Majesty" as it were - because of George. And that because he never really wanted to marry me that I am "lucky" to live in this house because of HIM. For years, because of my guilt about getting him to marry ME, I felt like I had to make HIM happy. I acquiesced to alot of decorating issues. If he really wanted something, I demurred. I mean, I'd already asked so much, who was I to insist we had a beige patio set if he REALLY wanted a black one? I'd already gotten more than I deserved. It was definitely a "if Daddy ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" household.

So that's alot of baggage I've carried for 22 years. But when I think of it as MY house now, I feel so much better. I am worthy of it. It is MINE too. I own it as much as anyone. It is mine to feel at peace in. It is mine to enjoy. I am ready to stop looking over my shoulder to see if I am doing things correctly or if I am accidently ignoring him if he needs something. At this point, he can barely hear me when I ask him something the first time, so I need to speak up all the time and I realize he isn't that interested in what I am doing when I am not with him.

For years, I had flashbacks of times when I had accidentally screwed up something, like not putting his frequent flier number on the vacation reservations or accidently embarrassed him by not asking before posting a picture of him he didn't like. Both ended up with me curled in a ball on the floor sobbing while he raged at me and called me every epithet he could think of. When that happens a few times, you start to walk on eggshells and fear anything you forget could lead to that.

When I got to the point where I didn't care what he did, it was sad and hurt, but it helped. If he unloads on me again, I will unload back and unload on him. I'm done feeling inferior or guilty or helpless. I have to make sure I balance that against times I may REALLY be wrong or hurt his feelings when I absolutely shouldn't, but I think I have a long way before I am unfair about it.

As a matter of fact, yesterday we had another verbal tussle in the car that resulted in me telling him that when he gets extremely anxious about finances and retirement, that it is horrible for me. (And more times than not, I go off to take a Xanax or edible until my heart stops racing.) That I am afraid our retirement will be a constant state of him bemoaning our finances - and that's even when we are better off than anyone we know. And I am NOT going to live like that. He again insisted that he WASN'T acting like that to me and I just didn't take it. I merely said "knowing how you react when we talk about it and I KNOW you're going to blow up, do you think I would accuse you of something like that if it wasn't REAL?!?!" And it was a long, quiet ride home after that.

At this point, every woman who has a "sensitive" man knows what comes next. I wait a reasonable amount of time and then I apologize. Because that's what we have to do to reestablish the status quo. Except I didn't. I'm done. This is the new status quo. If you do something that scares me or makes me uncomfortable and I tell you, I will NOT be gaslit, whether it's intentional or not. YOU did something that was threatening to me and I am going to tell you it's not okay. You figure out what to do.

So in this light, feeling like it is MY house has an important meaning. This is MY house as well as YOURS and I'm going to feel comfortable in it. I'm not going to feel guilty about leaving you alone to do my own things or lay down or not watch another game with you. It's okay for me to spend time alone in my office doing things I want to do. Maybe one day he'll miss spending time with me and try to find me, but that's not the point. The point is that I've always wanted my house to be a place where everyone could feel safe and now I feel it is safe for me. Because I've made it that way in my heart. This is my house and my safe place. I have nested here and hope to be here forever.

I really hope fate works it out that way.

PS I just remembered also that when we first moved in and I had transferred the phone service from my house to this one (because one of us had to) and left my name on it as the primary owner - George hit the ceiling. He was the husband and HIS name should be on all the housing docs and bills. I called and changed all the utilities to his name either primary or only, if only one was allowed. I learned early that this was HIS house and I was always secondary. I guess that really did live in me all these years.