The kids all had a good Christmas, that's what matters in the end, right? Luke and my nephew are happy clams, especially Luke, whose room now looks like freakin' NASA control-central. Turned out he didn't have to go to his dad's on Christmas (they celebrated on the 23rd) at all, and isn't going to De Kalb until Friday (as I wrestle with that day of the week it is in the first place...you should've seen how confused I was at the doctor on Monday (??)).
I spent Christmas Eve chiefly alone at home, sequestered in illness. I missed out on seeing the extended Miklasz cousins and kids and the hilarity that always ensues, as well as church, though I gave P'Dave a heads up and he said he would keep me in healing prayers. My mom managed not to have too bad a panic tirade, but mind you, I was asleep a lot of this Christmas.
My Christmas, on a scale of 1-10, probably weighed in at a -11. I think it was Friday when I was smoking and noticed that it hurt a little to inhale. Same throughout the weekend, but I started coughing a little more during drumming Saturday night. Sunday night, wheezing despite my inhaler was irritating. But by Monday, I had a 102 fever, was wheezing like crazy and had probably one of THE most painful coughs ever, my inhaler still not doing jack. Despite having a research paper I needed to turn at midnight (read: begin, write a draft and turn it in by midnight), I hadn't wrapped gifts yet, was supposed to run Ma on errands, and all sorts of other happy holiday hoo-hah, I went to family practice at 11:15 Monday morning, diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis. (Or as it says in the computer chart, "bronchitis with bronchiospasms.") Tell me about it! Instead of going straight to the pharmacy to get the antibiotic, steroids and extra inhaler, I figured I'd wait to go until it was after my 2:15 shrink appointment, so I could pick up all 5 (!) Rx's I needed in one trip. By then, my fever was too high to drive myself. My mom had to take me, which she was thrilled about. The fever didn't completely break until Christmas night.
Anyway, dosed up on every imaginable medication to relieve my agony, emailed my professor, and went straight to bed. A hot toddy would've hit the spot...I have some legitimate, rather urgent business to take care of with school via PDF file paperwork signing and scanning back, and, while I usually have no issues with this, I can't find the file on my flash drive and I managed to turn the scanner settings into either Russian or Greek. I think it's Greek, because if it were Russian, I'd be able to pick out enough to reset the bloody thing back to English. Another project to shelf until I can enlist Luke's help. (Not that he reads Greek either, but he's tech savvy.)
Socks, socks, and more socks were the overall theme of my holiday gifts. I do collect socks, but most of them are thin and meant for spring or summer. I got a crap-ton of fuzzy warm socks, a pair of knit Union Jack socks my cousin bought me in Shanghai of all places, Ninja socks--with little ninjas on them...all so cool. Luke bought me a very beautiful purse he picked out himself at "Feed the Starving Children," a charity event with which he volunteers a few times year at school, packing boxes of things to send overseas. In return, they sell some of their handmade goods to us here as a co-op. I thought Luke was very thoughtful and it really is pretty. Tea and an infuser from Jake, and KISS Pez Dispensers from my brother (of course). A good haul, no?
(Wow, Pandora just shuffled a duet of "Crazy Love" between Van Morrison and Ray Charles....this is really good! But I digress.)
What'd I get from Guy, you might ask? A curt, short email about how he's been busy, he's still busy, and he foresees being busy at great length for some time in the future. It was a quick "Sorry you fell on the ice and hit your head, Luke should walk you around, I have a sinus infection I think, work, work, more work, then taking time off in January to do things with my sisters. Hope the bronchitis clears up soon!" ALL of which I took to mean, "I'm not invested in maintaining our friendship AT ALL, but I'll still call you like every 3 weeks for 10 minutes on my way home from work to see how you're doing and catch the latest scoop on all of your girlfriends."
Posted a while ago, but more poignant now than ever. It was on the last mix CD I gave Guy, incidentally:
Now you're all aware of how patient, kind, and unselfish I've been towards Guy (as he said himself) over the last few years. But I'm too accommodating. I'm too nice. I'm too patient. I think I'm just waiting for the train to run me over with a "HE'S NOT THE ONE FOR YOU" chugga-chugging over me. But Guy keeps me dangling--with just enough to keep thinking--one more "I love you'--that he'll cave into my arms finally forever. All that goofy crap about being able to practice when I graduate in any of the United States, whether overtly or unconsciously suggesting I pack up and follow him to wherever he decides to retire (WITH HIS WIFE).
I had to see him last week Thursday because of the leg edema from the Risperdal bad reaction (which is resolved, thank you, water pill) and he looked cute and smelled like Guy and hugged me tightly, but it was work time, so I could take no more than my allotted 15 minutes to discuss not only my medical problem but also the personal life of my best girlfriend, which he asks about every time I see him, because her life is apparently much more interesting than mine, which is probably pretty obvious in my random in-train-commute texts to and from downtown at school every day.
I told him I never wanted our friendship to become one of those "have-dinner-twice-a-year" reunions. That I wanted to see him more frequently. Look at friends I have like Kate, whom I talk to all the time but haven't physically seen for 20 years? Or other friends I have who've been friends forever whom I rarely see, like BMF. They have excuses of distance. Guy's just on his own agenda and can squeeze me in, I think, when he needs his ego stroked.
So into the attic went his Christmas presents. There'll be no "Twelve Days of Christmas" like he surprised me with last year-12 gifts, one for each day gradually getting nicer. But it's not so much about the gifts as the time. I told him all I wanted this year was an afternoon to walk through the Art Institute of Chicago with him sometime this winter and look at art together. An afternoon, that's all. I wish Guy was as interested in being around me as I was to him when we were at Balderdash & Verities.
I'm not mad at him, I'm sad for us. Yes, it'll take me a while to totally get over, because-JESUS-read this blog and it's wrought with Guy bashing, bickering, swooning and romanticism better than any story I could've ever concocted on my own and took up like 400 entries. I still love Guy and will always be a little bit in love with him, but I deserve better....more.....insert cliche here. All true. A 57-year old Irish Catholic married doctor isn't going to be my superman. So slowly I'll begin to let go, my kind of cracked heart will solidify again and I'm sure I'll hear from him from time to time when it's convenient for him to catch up. But the waiting around breathlessly for the next text, phone call or email is a colossal waste of my energy.
I thought about sending him this someecard but decided it was too snarky:
Guy has a huge imprint on my heart that will always belong to him, but being hung up on a maybe just isn't healthy. It isn't productive. "There are other fish in the sea." Interesting Andrea fact: I have never eaten a fish in my entire life. Swear to God. But I digress, again. Either love will come unexpectedly from any direction or it may never come again at all. Such is the game. No, I'm not the eat a bag of chips/gallon of ice cream kind of girl....I do retail therapy (which'll have to wait until my next grad stipend), and eat tater tots and get loaded (with..tots, of course, nothing else, naturally!) with Meg a few times.
Some decent dough is anticipated plunking into the lap of the Offbeat Drummer in the next year, and if it does, I'm taking Luke (JUST LUKE) on proper vacation--somewhere warm if it's chilly in Chicago; or, if we have to wait until this summer, somewhere cool. Maybe reconnect with some old friends I haven't seen since college, especially the ones who were a year older than I was and had their 20-year reunion this past fall, mine next year.
Until then, I have orthodontia for Luke, school, a grant writing internship, my band and my friends and family to tend to.
Pass the beer--here comes the tear...though it's not half as bad I expected it to be. So maybe just an empty shot glass.
I need more tea with honey. Friends who comment, or anyone else out there, please tell me I'm making the right decision in letting go of this man. I really did (do) love him with every dust mite in my room.
I spent Christmas Eve chiefly alone at home, sequestered in illness. I missed out on seeing the extended Miklasz cousins and kids and the hilarity that always ensues, as well as church, though I gave P'Dave a heads up and he said he would keep me in healing prayers. My mom managed not to have too bad a panic tirade, but mind you, I was asleep a lot of this Christmas.
My Christmas, on a scale of 1-10, probably weighed in at a -11. I think it was Friday when I was smoking and noticed that it hurt a little to inhale. Same throughout the weekend, but I started coughing a little more during drumming Saturday night. Sunday night, wheezing despite my inhaler was irritating. But by Monday, I had a 102 fever, was wheezing like crazy and had probably one of THE most painful coughs ever, my inhaler still not doing jack. Despite having a research paper I needed to turn at midnight (read: begin, write a draft and turn it in by midnight), I hadn't wrapped gifts yet, was supposed to run Ma on errands, and all sorts of other happy holiday hoo-hah, I went to family practice at 11:15 Monday morning, diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis. (Or as it says in the computer chart, "bronchitis with bronchiospasms.") Tell me about it! Instead of going straight to the pharmacy to get the antibiotic, steroids and extra inhaler, I figured I'd wait to go until it was after my 2:15 shrink appointment, so I could pick up all 5 (!) Rx's I needed in one trip. By then, my fever was too high to drive myself. My mom had to take me, which she was thrilled about. The fever didn't completely break until Christmas night.
Anyway, dosed up on every imaginable medication to relieve my agony, emailed my professor, and went straight to bed. A hot toddy would've hit the spot...I have some legitimate, rather urgent business to take care of with school via PDF file paperwork signing and scanning back, and, while I usually have no issues with this, I can't find the file on my flash drive and I managed to turn the scanner settings into either Russian or Greek. I think it's Greek, because if it were Russian, I'd be able to pick out enough to reset the bloody thing back to English. Another project to shelf until I can enlist Luke's help. (Not that he reads Greek either, but he's tech savvy.)
Socks, socks, and more socks were the overall theme of my holiday gifts. I do collect socks, but most of them are thin and meant for spring or summer. I got a crap-ton of fuzzy warm socks, a pair of knit Union Jack socks my cousin bought me in Shanghai of all places, Ninja socks--with little ninjas on them...all so cool. Luke bought me a very beautiful purse he picked out himself at "Feed the Starving Children," a charity event with which he volunteers a few times year at school, packing boxes of things to send overseas. In return, they sell some of their handmade goods to us here as a co-op. I thought Luke was very thoughtful and it really is pretty. Tea and an infuser from Jake, and KISS Pez Dispensers from my brother (of course). A good haul, no?
(Wow, Pandora just shuffled a duet of "Crazy Love" between Van Morrison and Ray Charles....this is really good! But I digress.)
What'd I get from Guy, you might ask? A curt, short email about how he's been busy, he's still busy, and he foresees being busy at great length for some time in the future. It was a quick "Sorry you fell on the ice and hit your head, Luke should walk you around, I have a sinus infection I think, work, work, more work, then taking time off in January to do things with my sisters. Hope the bronchitis clears up soon!" ALL of which I took to mean, "I'm not invested in maintaining our friendship AT ALL, but I'll still call you like every 3 weeks for 10 minutes on my way home from work to see how you're doing and catch the latest scoop on all of your girlfriends."
Posted a while ago, but more poignant now than ever. It was on the last mix CD I gave Guy, incidentally:
Now you're all aware of how patient, kind, and unselfish I've been towards Guy (as he said himself) over the last few years. But I'm too accommodating. I'm too nice. I'm too patient. I think I'm just waiting for the train to run me over with a "HE'S NOT THE ONE FOR YOU" chugga-chugging over me. But Guy keeps me dangling--with just enough to keep thinking--one more "I love you'--that he'll cave into my arms finally forever. All that goofy crap about being able to practice when I graduate in any of the United States, whether overtly or unconsciously suggesting I pack up and follow him to wherever he decides to retire (WITH HIS WIFE).
I had to see him last week Thursday because of the leg edema from the Risperdal bad reaction (which is resolved, thank you, water pill) and he looked cute and smelled like Guy and hugged me tightly, but it was work time, so I could take no more than my allotted 15 minutes to discuss not only my medical problem but also the personal life of my best girlfriend, which he asks about every time I see him, because her life is apparently much more interesting than mine, which is probably pretty obvious in my random in-train-commute texts to and from downtown at school every day.
I told him I never wanted our friendship to become one of those "have-dinner-twice-a-year" reunions. That I wanted to see him more frequently. Look at friends I have like Kate, whom I talk to all the time but haven't physically seen for 20 years? Or other friends I have who've been friends forever whom I rarely see, like BMF. They have excuses of distance. Guy's just on his own agenda and can squeeze me in, I think, when he needs his ego stroked.
So into the attic went his Christmas presents. There'll be no "Twelve Days of Christmas" like he surprised me with last year-12 gifts, one for each day gradually getting nicer. But it's not so much about the gifts as the time. I told him all I wanted this year was an afternoon to walk through the Art Institute of Chicago with him sometime this winter and look at art together. An afternoon, that's all. I wish Guy was as interested in being around me as I was to him when we were at Balderdash & Verities.
I'm not mad at him, I'm sad for us. Yes, it'll take me a while to totally get over, because-JESUS-read this blog and it's wrought with Guy bashing, bickering, swooning and romanticism better than any story I could've ever concocted on my own and took up like 400 entries. I still love Guy and will always be a little bit in love with him, but I deserve better....more.....insert cliche here. All true. A 57-year old Irish Catholic married doctor isn't going to be my superman. So slowly I'll begin to let go, my kind of cracked heart will solidify again and I'm sure I'll hear from him from time to time when it's convenient for him to catch up. But the waiting around breathlessly for the next text, phone call or email is a colossal waste of my energy.
I thought about sending him this someecard but decided it was too snarky:
Guy has a huge imprint on my heart that will always belong to him, but being hung up on a maybe just isn't healthy. It isn't productive. "There are other fish in the sea." Interesting Andrea fact: I have never eaten a fish in my entire life. Swear to God. But I digress, again. Either love will come unexpectedly from any direction or it may never come again at all. Such is the game. No, I'm not the eat a bag of chips/gallon of ice cream kind of girl....I do retail therapy (which'll have to wait until my next grad stipend), and eat tater tots and get loaded (with..tots, of course, nothing else, naturally!) with Meg a few times.
Some decent dough is anticipated plunking into the lap of the Offbeat Drummer in the next year, and if it does, I'm taking Luke (JUST LUKE) on proper vacation--somewhere warm if it's chilly in Chicago; or, if we have to wait until this summer, somewhere cool. Maybe reconnect with some old friends I haven't seen since college, especially the ones who were a year older than I was and had their 20-year reunion this past fall, mine next year.
Until then, I have orthodontia for Luke, school, a grant writing internship, my band and my friends and family to tend to.
Pass the beer--here comes the tear...though it's not half as bad I expected it to be. So maybe just an empty shot glass.
I need more tea with honey. Friends who comment, or anyone else out there, please tell me I'm making the right decision in letting go of this man. I really did (do) love him with every dust mite in my room.
7 comments:
Is the right decision as hard as it may be
Seasons greetings to all the offbeat drummers x
What's ironic is that you dumped him but he'll have no idea he's been dumped and will press forward like there's absolutely nothing wrong between the two of you. For matters of the heart being his medical specialty, he is clueless in matters of the heart.
There is sorrow and loss with any change, especially with change that is necessary. And while my heart aches for yours, from my vantage point I see your strength despite your sadness and your love despite your pain. Take a step at a time, Love. Never forget that we are stepping with you.
As an offbeat drumee, I agree. I can attest to this being a good thing, the letting go. It's even easier when they give you sign after sign that you are making the right move.
And I think BMF is right too, he doesn't have a clue.
In agreement with all who've commented. And no, by all means don't sit and wallow listening to "What'll I Do?" or anything (though I do like the Nilsson version) or zone out on medication (other than what's been prescribed!).
I'm sorry you were so sick for the holidays. But it sounds like the bed rest and solitude gave you some good reflection time and you're making the right decision.
I still agree with what Kate has said that he wants/needs you in his life, but it's always on his terms, and that's no fun. That's a toy. Of course Guy loves his toy. Why? Because it's always there when he wants to play with it. Nobody needs that bullshit. He thinks he's busy? I'd be happy to show him someday what "busy" is really like at our age.
I know it hurts, and tears will flow, and he promised this, that and the other thing to you a long time ago but no, Andrea, an ageing married Irish Catholic doctor set in his ways who's afraid of the whole world is not going to make you happy. He can't keep up with your brain. That said...You've met your intellectual match, and it's not Guy. One Russian novel doesn't count, Guy.
Feel better soon, Darling, so you can have some fun before you go back to school.
Hey, I REALLY like the socks!
I really, really like the Union Jack socks!!!
Really! Susie got you those?
Annie, you are so much like your sock collection: cozy, bright, bold, mismatched, short, tall, polka-dotted, ninja, Anglophile and heart-shaped. All those wonderful things.
I'm sorry I didn't interrogate Guy more extensively when I met him--maybe I could've convinced you to heave-ho him years ago. You were too mesmerizing and I just kind of forgot he was there. So part of this is prolly my fault.
My God, no, it's not your fault at all! It's nobody's fault...it's just how things didn't work out. If anyone is to feel bad about it, it should be Guy, not me or you or any of us.
He promised never to abandon me. But in too many ways, he did. What's worse? He doesn't care that he did.
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