Midnight and Up

Midnight is rolling around again and I still haven't' been able to sleep. I went to be at my normal time, tired tired tired, but-nothing. I haven't had problems with insomnia type stuff for a long time, and I don't think this applies anyway. I am just having trouble stopping all of the thoughts in my head. you will all come to regret my home computer, I think. Nighttime is not ever the best time to write anyway; all this stuff comes up that I might push aside during the day, and when I am tired on top of it, well, who knows what might come up.

Tonight, I sit here waiting for the phone to ring. My sister called earlier and the local hospital where our dad lives was in the process then of Lifeflighting him to the big hospital 65 miles away. This isn't the first round in this fight by any means; we have been here before. So my sister said that she very blithely said (and please don't judge her saying this; there are valid reasons for her response),"Okay, well, he is going to a good place and I will just be there on Saturday when I am off." "No, no," the doctor said, "I really think you should come, and also call anyone else who needs to be here." So she called me and my other sisters and headed over, but since we don't really know anything yet, there isn't any sense in me going at the moment. She expects to get there anytime now, and will call if I really do need to go. I have already called Jacquie to let her know what was going on, just in case, but-nobody knows anything yet. So I wait for the phone to ring; if she doesn't call soon that means he is stable enough that she will call in the morning and let me know. We all hope that the doctor at home was erring on the side of caution, and that he will spend a couple of days in the hospital. If not, well, I guess we will figure out what to do then.

Tonight, too, some things happened before my sister called that are not helping in the sleep department any. I think I am going to have to break up with Steve. Earlier today I said that it is so hard and that my first instinct is to bail, but that isn't entirely accurate. I know that there are problems, and I think-no, I KNOW-that I have stuck around through a lot of things in the last few years, so it isn't that all of a sudden it is too hard and I don't want to do it anymore. I would move heaven and earth to make this work, but I just don't think it is going to. I know well that my emotional state is fragile right now so I may feel differently-better-in the morning after I have rested, but right now, I just don't think I can keep doing this. It is hard for me to say anything without turning him into the bad guy, but that isn't entirely the case. It just-it is what it is.

I can say all the right things and even feel all the right things at moments-how it is better to just walk away now and stop trying, that it is better and more healthy certainly to say enough is enough, I am not doing this any longer...all of that stuff that I know to be true. It doesn't matter, though, how much better or more healthy it might be when you know that you have to cut off a vital organ that you are going to miss terribly because it is diseased. It hurts. It hurts to know that no matter what I do or who I am, it isn't enough for Steve. He is never going to love me the way I deserve to be loved; he is never going to wake up one morning and think "Oh my God, I better not lose this one!" I talk about progress, and there has been some. I talk about baby steps and those are real and true as well. But no matter how much forward progress we make, it isn't going to change the fact that he doesn't love me the way I need to be loved.

But there is all this other stuff, too, that makes this so hard. That we have been together going on four years and all the kids love him. So hard to have put them through hell with my second marriage and now have to decide whether or not I should rip this other man out of their lives. Can Sam handle one more abandonment by a man he loves? Can any one of us truly and really get through this unscathed and undamaged on a fundamental emotional level? I don't have any good answer for any of those questions.

I don't know that I can. I write this and I know I am opening myself up to a shitload of criticism, I know that being so goddamned vulnerable is a terrible, terrible thing to be a lot of the time. I know that when I tell you that after my sister called and I told Steve, "I can't deal with this anymore right now. Can we just leave things the way they are for the time being and table it for a later date? Because I am not in a place where I can handle this situation right now. And neither one of us is going anywhere at the moment so does this have to be resolved right this second?(and there are a couple of other reasons that HE was in no place to even begin to comprehend this at the moment either, so for that reason, too, I just couldn't talk to him about it any longer)" you will say that I am crazy, putting it off is not way to handle it, it isn't going to be easier later rather than sooner, and you are all probably right.

However, I know that right now I am incapable of making any sort of life-changing decision, but especially when it comes to Steve. I know it is coming, me having to end this; it has been coming for ages. I am just not quite strong enough or brave enough to do it right now. The time isn't right. Also, and I do truly believe this, for whatever reasons I haven't been strong enough yet, but there will come a day-and it might be tomorrow or it might be a year from now-when I wake up and think, "Okay, sweetie, are you done?" and I will think about it for a minute or two and be able to answer, "yep, I am." It's almost like hitting rock bottom when you are a drunk; you have to get to that point where enough is more than enough,, because if you don't, you just keep going back.

So, there are these two potentially huge things vying for attention in my head, as well as the nasty phone call I got from Sam's orchestra teacher and the fact that because we have moved to the next town over, Hannah working is going to be a logistical nightmare-IF she ever gets a job. KFC didn't hire here but told her to call back next week in case one of the new hires doesn't work out (and you can bet THAT was a big ego boost for her, right?), but she has an interview with another place on Friday...my brain is overflowing and I can't make it shut the fuck up.

See what happens when you let me loose at midnight with a keyboard?

My sister hasn't called and it is almost 12:30. I am having toast and will eat it and try to get back in bed and sleep, and I imagine I will know more in the morning.

***Morning now, and no call from my sister last night. This is good.***