March 11, 2012
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sleepless….
He’s exhausted again when he comes home, and his mood is off. He isn’t nasty to me, but I can feel it hanging like incense smoke. My dress was shorter, with the same high heels. He doesn’t comment other than to say, “Oh, you’re here. Lay with me.” He pats the bed.
We make do with leftovers that night. He’s going to make a salad and top it with chicken that he grilled nearly 2 weeks ago. I take the ground beef crumbles that I cooked a week ago and make taco meat out of it. I don’t trust the chicken. He chides me about it, and it borders on nasty, but I keep my comments in check. He frowns over the skillet, and then pulls out a bag of taco meat that I made from the other half of the package of ground beef. I missed it in the fridge because I figured he had eaten it on his days off. I can’t help but feel sheepish and wasteful under his disapproving gaze.
Devil me pinches my arm, “Snap out of it, woman! It’s ground beef from Walmart! He’s acting the ass!”
Somehow, I don’t hear her. I’ve switched to “please others” mode. It will get worse as the night goes on. Part of the problem is that I’m fatigued. I moved some things to the new house, climbed on chairs and ladders to replace dead batteries in seven smoke and carbon dioxide monitors, checked and cleaned an a/c filter set in the highest point of the ceiling (perched on an 8′ ladder with palms sweating and heart pounding), assembled the bed I stained, dragged limbs and fronds from the front lawn, fixed the kitchen sink….7 hours of work with no break.
We watch a movie (he teases that I’ll fall asleep during it, but I don’t…It’s very good…..”Restrained”). When we go to bed, he’s not amorous at all. I chalk it up to being tired, refrain from commenting on it. I cuddle up and rest my head on his chest. I tell him that I don’t go to work until later on Monday, so if he wants me to spend the night on Sunday I can.
I’m immediately sorry that I made the offer. He tells me, “I don’t sleep well when you’re here. You make noises in your sleep. It’s not snoring, but your breath catches when you lay on my chest. It keeps me awake. You probably don’t realize that you twitch and jerk in your sleep too. You wake me up. You do it constantly…” In the dark he can’t see my eyes growing wide with shock, he ignores the waves of distress. I immediately move away from him, stammering an apology. “You can’t help it, but you must have been told…” he offers, “You sleep so deeply that I just move you around until you stop snoring. You never wake up”. “No,” I reply, unable to hide the distress and hurt in my voice, “I’ve only slept overnight with the ex husband and you.” He goes on, but I have no words for him. He even teases that I’ll go sleep on the couch. I murmur, “No,” so quietly that I can’t be certain that he heard me.
I thought it was going well between us. Now he tells me that he doesn’t like sleeping with me? It would seem like such a little thing, but it’s not. It’s rife with baggage and pain that I can’t discuss with D.
When he begins to snore softly, I hook my right arm and leg over the edge of the bed and carefully move away from D. It’s a practiced move. I spent years sleeping on less than 12″ of bed. Those were the final years of the marriage to H. Often, I was awakened by a brutal punch, or a sharp kick would send me flying over the edge to the floor. Eventually, he locked me out of the bedroom to sleep on the couch. Sometimes he would come out and punch me or haul me off the couch by my hair and kick me in the ribs. I still sleep lightly, so I’m puzzled when D says that I sleep deeply.
I guess I trusted D.
Halfway to the edge, D stirs and he cuddles up to me. I turn my back to him because I’m crying silently (another practiced art perfected from years of living with someone who could easily give me something to cry about if he saw tears). D remarks that he thought that I was going to kiss him, but I couldn’t talk then. He brushes my hair back, dragging his fingers through tears, which neither of us comment on. He cuddles me until he falls asleep, then he rolls to his back and I continue my journey to the edge of the bed.
The rain pounds on the roof. It’s nasty outside tonight. I listen for a lull, because I am seriously considering going home. I’m not mad, just hurt and distressed that he’s never said anything. I wonder if that’s why H would punch and kick me when I was asleep. I always thought that he hated me, but maybe it was just frustration because he couldn’t sleep. I laid on my side at the edge of the bed, tears streaming silently from my eyes, embarrassed and wondering if anyone would ever want me for anything other than sex. Who would want me anyway? They’d never get any sleep thanks to me. The finality of it all was overwhelming.
The rain poured down harder, and I realized that I would never live with anyone, that I would just live alone. Why risk getting pounded with fists? My chest grew tight with anxiety. If I dozed, it was only for a short while. I was afraid to sleep. I wanted to leave. I was afraid to stir.
To make matters worse, his clock wasn’t set properly and with the time change, he overslept. His phone rang at 6 am. Only it wasn’t 6 am, it was 7 am and he was late. He had offered me coffee, but I declined. He didn’t comment on my swollen eyes, which was fine with me. He bustled around, upset about oversleeping and his clock being wrong. I couldn’t help but feel responsible even though I wasn’t. We flew out the front door, with me looking at the ground.
He surprised me by taking me in his arms and kissing me, “I’ll talk to you later.”
I came back here, crawled into bed after feeding the animals. The kitten hopped on the bed and cuddled up close. I dozed for an hour, then she crept up and nuzzled my face with hers. I scratched her head, “You don’t mind sleeping in bed with me.” I got up and got busy with chores and errands, until I was weary.
Being busy meant that I wouldn’t have to think about D’s puzzling behavior. Hadn’t he said before that he loved it when I slept over? that he loved waking up next to me? When I sat down for a rest the questions poured over me like a flash flood. I felt like damaged goods. Not. Good. Enough. Again.
The tears started up again and I howled, “Goddammit! I have no tears left! Besides, I have to do my taxes!” The dog looks at me with her head cocked to one side. It begins to pour rain again. I’m thankful that I mowed the lawn and hauled the garbage and recycling out to the curb. I should shower, but I blog instead…I’m hoping that it will ease the anxiety that clamps my chest.
It does, but only after releasing another flash flood of tears. Devil me sits down next to me. I’m wondering if I’ll order Chinese food for dinner and then drop off the cat food that I picked up for D when I go to pick up my order. Devil me looks disgusted, “I’d order Chinese food, then drop by the grocery store and return the fucking cat food and let that happy asshole buy his own.” I look at her helplessly, then I start to giggle, “What cat food?” I start to apologize to her, “I’m expecting Communists to invade the funhaus and the weather is pretty shitty and I’m tired…” Her turn to laugh. She tells me to check the forecast. I do. Wow. Rain for most of the week.
Her eyes narrow, “Now check Daytona.”
I look at her. She’s not smiling. I key in the city, and get the forecast. The weather is perfect, will be perfect all week, next week. Not a drop of rain. I look at Devil me, matching her face, which is mine, of course. I open a new window and type in Bike Week Daytona. I hunt for the event dates.
D usually goes to an event in Daytona with the fair weathers the weekend before Bike Week. He had bemoaned the fact that he would be working. Worse, he was nursing an injured shoulder. He can’t ride the motorcycle at all for weeks – doctor’s orders. The fair weathers are too lazy to even ride up anymore; they trailer their bikes or some don’t even take them at all. They cite the unsafe roads and the length of the ride. Last year he bellyached about having to ride up with a friend from work. He roomed with the guy, who spent most of his time on the balcony chatting up some girl on his cell phone and smoking cigars. They missed riding the “loop” with the fair weathers because they left early.
Bike Week started this weekend.
Devil me taps the computer screen with her finger, “So quick to criticize yourself and lose sleep. He’s upset because he didn’t get to go hang out with the fair weathers. Wah wah. He still could go to the event in April. He could do some rides here.” She taps the screen to emphasize her point.
“Then he takes it out on you. Hurts you. Makes you feel like dog shit on the bottom of his shoe,” she’s pacing the room, “He acts like it’s your fault. Bullshit. Sometimes you don’t get to take a vacation to somewhere you want to go. He goes every year. He gets half the month off with his wacky schedule. He’s off next week. That’s probably why he mentioned that he couldn’t ride the bike; he probably wishes he could get to Daytona. Nevermind the fact that he couldn’t get a room in a fleabag motel within 100 miles of Daytona….
“You know why he doesn’t take rides with the guys here? You know why he would never take you along? He’s afraid of some of the guys. He’s afraid you’ll leave him for one of them…” she rants while I stare at the screen. There’s a leggy blond in a microscopic bikini in one of the photos. I know she’s right. I can’t believe I didn’t remember. He always pouts when he doesn’t get to go to his favorite events.
It doesn’t justify treating me badly and taking it out on me.
I’ll give him space, but I will drop the damned cat food off when I go to pick up the Chinese food. I don’t want to look at that in my trunk for the next week.
I had apologized in an email, a real apology. I had sent him a text earlier today as well, when I was still bewildered. He answered the text, “Don’t come over tonight. I have to read for the exam.” He’s having a 6 hour exam soon. He had said before that it would be a “surprise” exam. That he would have to answer questions asked by a board of questioners, that he could get nothing wrong. Perhaps he got the head’s up and it’s going to happen. I wished him luck on it. Promised to drop the cat food over while he was at work.
More likely he’s so upset about the whole Daytona thing that he just wants to wallow in his misery and watch dark movies and be alone.
Either way, I’ll leave him be. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy here and at the new house.
