kyburg | So much time, so little to do - scratch that-reverse it, please

There are two words to describe this weekend.

Feeding. Frenzy.

Friday was lovely. Friday was fine - I got my dinner on sticks, charbroiled and that included quail eggs. Yessir. Num-num good.

Saturday, you can read

unclejimbo's account - and you just about have it. But add that we ended up driving in rain from Palm Springs to Torrance after dark. And came upon a four-car slammer just outside Beaumont without so much as a blanket in the car again - that needs to be remedied - people with head injuries standing under umbrellas with seat covers as blankets does not say "first-aid" to me. Does it to you? Hate driving weekends in rain and dark. Everyone wants to get home and they think they can do it at 90 MPH. No. You. Can't. It wasn't Jim's fault, but I was nauseous before we got home. Stupid idiots.

I have guava jelly to make, fruitcake to bake (now that I have everything), laundry to wash and dry - things from shopping to put away - and all I want to do is nap. Oh, and finish my envelope for

project29. Which reminds me - I have to go get a padded 9 x 6. And burn two CDs - one of videos, the other of music.

But I opened the browser and checked my friends list first. Stupid Donna.

It was one of the first things Jim and I found we had in common. We'd had sucky teenage years. We'd also only had one serious relationship each before meeting each other. His had ended in a truly burn-up fashion - he'd courted a young lady who dumped him for a teenager nearly half either of their ages. You have to understand how much of a romantic my husband is; he couldn't turn on the radio for a year. His idea of a happy ending always includes the word "married." Find a nice boy, find a nice girl - whatever - straight, gay or both, more than one - whatever. Happiness is being married and having a family. No matter who you are. We've had several talks about this - it's a bit ethnocentric for my taste.

But you love - when you love - for life.

And you take a good hard look before you do.

How hard. From here, you have to ask Jim about that first attempt. Now I get to talk about me.

I can tell who who I've had sex with - my entire life. It's easy. All I have to do is look at my last name - past the one I was born with, I was given the other two in marriage to the men who laid me. Yes, I did it before marriage - but only with the two men who actually got to marry me.

There isn't anything casual about sex when you're talking about me. I was molested. I think I was about 7 or so - but I'm not entirely sure if it was before Dad died or after. I'm almost sure it was after - that would be 7 to 8 years of age, before we moved out of the house in the country. I don't know the name of the boy who did it. I have a good idea that it was one of three brothers who lived in the house across the street, and it he did it out of sheer curiosity, hormones and arrogance. Maybe he was 15. Once, and I never let him get close to me again. When I told my mother I hated so and so, I was chided for hating anyone - and that was the end of it.

We go into my 8 years old, moved into the new house self who then started expecting to be killed for being in the way - I stop eating, thinking I'm going to be poisoned - and we go into a cycle of depression, anxiety and so forth that finally got broken about twenty years ago. Did this ever come up? Yeah, at 28. Not before. Was it key to the depression? Nope. It is key to my sexual self, though. I don't let anyone get physically intimate that I don't trust - down to my core. Not "yeah, you should be okay." It has to be "you'll never hurt me. You'll never want to hurt me, even after you've gotten to know me. I'm the most important person in the world to you, and you are the most important person in the world to me."

Yeah, that's one guy at a time.

I was never a problem to my family when it came to sex, y'see. I had no interest in it and did nothing to encourage it. That clear enough? It's really funny if you think about it - since I didn't have sex with my best friends who I ran around with until 3:00 AM (all of them guys, none of them a "boyfriend"), I must be gay - if you asked my Mom. This was after I finally convinced her nothing was going on in the first place. That's right - I *must* be having sex if I was spending so much time with males - no? Oh, I must be gay. Keep in mind - either was okay. Maybe the lack of sex was a bit of a concern to Mom, after all.

But then I met Cliff - and I knew almost immediately I had two choices - run, or marry him. I got talked into not running.

And I started having sex.

Fast forward some years. It was a rocky marriage, and most people didn't think we were going to make it. We'd hit a huge bump on the family issue - and then he got sick. I was made to remember something he'd said when we'd decided to marry - "We'll get married - but I'll divorce you when I become an invalid." I'd told him then, "No, that's not how it works." He hadn't pressed it then.

In the years after his strokes, before he died, there were many people who judged the situation and felt it necessary to discuss it with me. The vast majority asked me time and time again why I was still there. When I told them I'd come into the marriage knowing I'd have to go through this with him, the shock on their faces was almost an insult. She fell in love with this guy and married him, even though she knew he was defective!Oh mi ghad. Now, add your choice of suffix:

Oh, what an idiot.
Oh, what a saint.

Take you pick. I was both, depending on who you spoke to. Or worse, I had a Motive. An Agenda. Something. It certainly wasn't love - there was no sex involved.

By the time Cliff died, I don't think we'd made love more than once in the last five years of his life. What the fuck was I still around for?

Because I said I would. And one of the reasons I decided to marry instead of just remain LWS is that I would have the final say in what happened to him - not his psychotic parents. One, who was gone 80% of the time on travel and the other one gone 100% on prescription drugs. All he really needed was an advocate - and I am fearless. Ask anyone.

Yes, the relationship changed - instead of planning a future, I went into caretaker mode and the priorities switched to is he safe, is he cared for and is he happy? Not are we going to have a family, which position will it be tonight and indoors or out?

Do people make that switch? From what I was able to gather from the social workers and case managers I worked with, not often. Not very well. Uh, well - not at all.

People thought I was nuts. A very few, those who had been in the business forty years or more, didn't. They knew - I was there because I loved him, and I wouldn't stand by and see him used, hurt or abandoned.

I'm weird, people. Even Cliff tried to push me into "getting on with my life." Leave him behind, go find someone else. Suggested divorce. When I asked him on what basis, he dropped it. Do you not love me? Then on what grounds do we divorce?

It doesn't work that way.

Uh, he suggested I take up

silverkun myself, once or twice. Stop laughing. I have to - so you do too. So there.

I wouldn't do it. There wasn't a part of me that could.

But I'm the exception, not the rule.

The rule? People leave. They get scared. It's too much for them. They can't handle it. They break up. They divorce. They abandon. They discard.

And it's perfectly acceptable. The ones who won't acknowledge this are the ones who chain their spouse with Alzheimer's to the bed, drug their loved one to gills so they won't burn the house down while they're away at work, or have a spouse who hides any evidence of illness in fear of losing their marriage. Or is hidden away by their spouse. Or hide a large part of themselves away until something blows up.

If you can't accept the bad with the good, you're better off leaving early. And don't think you're going to "get over" it - you won't. I have to commend those who hit the door at the first sign of trouble - I like honest. I like it frank, up-front and no-nonsensical. They say love is blind - if that's the case, I must be using something besides my eyes when I decide I'm in love.

I've never broken up with anyone. I don't think I know how.

If I can't handle anything you can give me in life - and I've taken a long look at what kinds of grief you can hand me - then you're not safe. You don't get my body, and you sure as hell don't get my soul. There's a lot more that goes into a long-term relationship besides the initial attraction - sex is important, but I don't think I've ever used that as the hallmark of being in love. How does he think? What does he think is important? Where do the priorities lie? How does he handle crap? What does he do when stressed? If he loves me, how? Can he say? Ah, there you can talk about the lovemaking -

Was it reciprocal? My last huge depressive illness was three years into our marriage. He hated it, but he never left me. Didn't cheat on me. Didn't threaten to toss me on my ear. He went to counseling sessions on request, did everything I asked. I'd have to say yes, wouldn't you?

Up to that point, I accept and tolerate a lot. I hold friends and acquaintances easily, letting go as needed, taking up much the same way. I'm very friendly, if stubborn as hell, and frank to the point of boorish. I can (and will) discuss anything - sometimes, the filter slips and I find myself at a table full of silence. Looking up, I see the deer-in-the-headlights look in all the faces and I realize that whoops, maybe they didn't need to hear what happens to someone coming out of AKA surgery and they messed up the Dilantin levels.

*sigh* Okay, I admit it. I watched a lot of relationship go fission. So did Jim. Were we careful? We spent the first half year of our relationship on the phone and email - I can recommend that. I've read some of the letters Dad sent Mom during WWII. There's not a lot of sex talk in them, either. But there's plenty of concern, wishes and chatter about things they both found important. So are a lot of the emails I've kept from 1999.

Is this any insurance that the relationship you're in won't go boom? Less physical attraction, and more concrete, boring, mundane shit? Stuff that hurts? Stuff that scares you?

Stuff that makes people question your sanity for taking it on?

That has to matter. You can't save the world on your back with your feet in the air, kids. There's a whole lot more to this relationship thing.

Or maybe I'm just paranoid to the point of reducing my chances to this point. You decide. This isn't a chide or a recommendation. Like most opinions, this one is experienced, but not educated. Your mileage may vary.

And if you're dealing with a chronic illness and get dumped - maybe it mattered, maybe it didn't. But best you find out now what it's all made of, neh?

And yes, it sucks. Long, hard and continously. Not your fault, not your idea and you've already got something that fucks up your life in every other way - this too?

Yeah, this too. From what I was told. I'm weird. I'd never do that to someone I loved.

I've got at least three friends on my list who prompted that -

And now, I go back to my life - now in progress.