~When The Person Who Loves You Doesn't Love What You Do (or don't do...)

I am so tired tonight. After a long day of shopping and cleaning I was folding laundry as my husband began cooking dinner. Potatoes in the oven and more than three-quarters done, the veggies ready and the steaks on the grill what else could happen but Kevin's pager going off. I swear that almost every Sunday night this happens. We are about to eat when his pager starts beeping and making racket calling him to come rescue someone.

 Our town has a volunteer fire and ems department and no calls are mandatory...This doesn't mean that he should not go, it just means that when we are walking out the door or almost to a park to play with the kids (or eating), it would not be the worse thing if he took a breath to see if enough people were responding before letting us all down just to respond to a call that has more than enough people...Please, don't get me wrong. I am not without concern. It was the town's fire department and EMS crew that came to try to help my Mom the night she died. Kevin was at work when he heard the call go out and then called me to let me know. I realized that day more than ever how very important the emergency teams are, especially in a town like Lanesborough where they are not paid to risk their lives and volunteers are precious and few. I am proud of my husband and what he does.

Still, me and the kids see him an hour a day. When the weekend comes I tend to be selfish. It used to be a rule that on Sundays he wouldn't go on any calls unless they had a problem getting people to respond or it was a big emergency. Now that he works 2 jobs that rule has gone out the window. Because Kevin works Wednesday nights when the Fire department meets for a couple hours, he spends 3-5 hours at the fire house catching up on training or truck repairs on Saturday morning.

This week especially has been tough. The kids have been on Spring break so I have had my fill...They have been arguing, making messes, my son has been sick with a cold and they are just plain busy. I made sure to fight my anxiety so that they enjoyed themselves so we brought them to the park, shopping for summer clothes and fun items for them, out for dinner and ice cream, to the park twice, out with friends and on and on. but, here it is the weekend and being with them from 7am to 11pm is wearing thin on me. Just think, I have an entire summer to look forward to, uh oh...LOL....

Anyway, the call came in and my husband starting swearing out loud. "Great, its an accident call!" So, taking it that he didn't want to go anyway I responded with "You don't have to go..." Still, he wanted to go. He told me to cook the steaks and he would be back. Sure, usually a call like that can take hours...Yes, I am selfish but he had responded to a call on Saturday and here we were about to sit down to an yummy, expensive meal that we seldom got to enjoy together.

We argued back and forth, I told him to just go, he said no, he didn't want to hear about it later if he did, then came the angry words....Suddenly he is telling me how stressed out he is, how overworked he feels and that on the weekend he doesn't feel like going on calls is a big deal. How dare I ask him to stay home, he said, when because of me he has to work 80 hours a week? If it wasn't for my illness I could work so he wouldn't have to work so much...

Funny that suddenly he is throwing all that in my face when for a year all I have done is apologize and tell him how very bad I feel that my anxiety has kept me from earning money. I even told him that I had been feeling like nothing to be proud of....He told me that he understood, that I couldn't help being sick. He reasoned that a lot of tragic things had happened in my life lately and that  it would affect even the strongest of people.

Still, now he is mad. Like a kid who didn't get his Mom's okay to do something he is pouting and saying things to hurt me. Funny, I never would dream of telling him that he can't go...He's a big boy, he has two legs.! GO! Still, now I am mad, hurt, frustrated and feeling so ....arggggggggggggg! If I had broken both legs  in an accident I wouldn't have to tell a soul why I couldn't walk....Still, because the brain and this damn anxiety is something that you can't see, I have to constantly explain my problem. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be this way and I am trying really hard to fight it but I need time and help like anyone with any condition like this...

In the end, Yes, it Will be up to me to just "get over it"....Still, why would any human being in this world ever EVER judge me and dare put an expiration date on my illness? How about if someone walks up to an overweight person and says. "just stop eating and lose weight!" or a smoker, "Just quit" or a person who has diabetes, "just get insulin!" When I have gotten healthy, when I have made this problem a thing of the past I know that the reason that I finally did it will begin and end with me. It will be my own pushing and work that makes me feel alright walking out my door. Still, it takes time to make the necessary changes in thought,actions and plans to get there....Being mad at me won't make me better...

What made me most upset isn't that he is stressed or even that he is let down by me. Its that he didn't let me know until he got angry with me. Then, with all that anger and in such a awful way he informed me that I am the reason he is miserable...That's when I got defensive and told him that I don't want to be with someone that I make miserable. He says now that he was only speaking out of anger and never meant it. Still, I think that there is a lot of truth behind what he said...

Me being stubborn I reasoned that I would just get a job. Screw all this anxiety, throwing up, sweating and shaking. I will go out tomorrow and find someone to hire me. That's not going to happen. My doctor has been working on my disability. Anxiety isn't the only thing that makes me unable to work. I have so many problems with my back that I am unable to lift more than a gallon of milk. I have fibromyalsia, degenerative disk disease, 3 disks that are out of place, and on and on...I am a few more documents away from being either accepted or denied for some help why I get better. If I go out and accept a job, any job and work even a day, the Social security department can reason that I am able to manage working a 40 hour a week job. (before Mom died I was working close to that but was coming home with my back and legs on fire, couldn't stand up right once I sat down and couldn't get out of bed until I took muscle relaxers and spent hours fighting the pain to get up...) I don't plan on a life of SSI, I just need time to work on getting healthy. I may need several surgeries and a lot of physical therapy.

So, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Work part time and lose any chance of SSI while not making anything compared to what my husband does plus pay a babysitter almost as much as I will make through the summer so I can work at a job that is breaking my back or be patient a bit longer while SSI gets to my application??? Until our argument I thought things were okay....

I want to say here and now that we are not perfect anyway. Never will be. As it is he has never read my blog and he doesn't read any of my poetry unless I stick it under his nose and ask him please. I know that if someone published me and there was money behind my words he would finally notice it. I told him today, and I believe this whole-heartedly, It is writing and loving it that makes me a writer, not the validation from people or paychecks for doing it. I love when people tell me how much they like my blog or my poetry but I cannot write for others....A writer that bleeds ink just to get the admiring eyes of their readers will lose their voice to their pride....I only want to speak the truth...In doing it I know that I paint myself as less than perfect....I know that a person reading can judge me, can say that I did something wrong...especially with the way I acted today, but writing myself as a perfect and do no wrong person would be a lie. I am only human and I am doing my best.

The truth is that to be happy and stay with a man until my last breath he will not take pride in only my spotlighted work and living but also (and sometimes more) in my work and living that may never be seen or appreciated by eyes...I need and want to be loved for me, not loved for what they want me to be...And I will love them forever the same.Love doesn't judge.

~Stacy J. Roosa

April 26, 2010