Today is one of those days I struggle through. I've fought off the tears a half dozen times already. If it were just the money, or the job, or the loneliness, or the future that seemed uncertain, as opposed to all of them put together, things wouldn't seem so damn hopeless.
There should be some kind of warning label on me in dealing with people today. Someone who hardly knows me and asks, "how are you doing?" might actually get a truthful answer. I should probably add a signature line to my emails. I get a ten-paragraph e-mail from Pilot asking my opinion about all these various things going on in his life. I tell him I'm envious that he has someone like me to bounce this stuff off of, I'm envious that he has friends to talk to, a member of the opposite sex to spend his weekend with. I'm trying to keep a lighthearted email conversation with a black blog reader going and when I let it drop for an hour and a half over lunch while I'm trying to diagnose two different peoples' computer problems (why? it's not part of my job, but it's part of how I'm supposed to be useful) and not let my workload get to me, he asks why I'm so quiet. I take the plunge - as you probably know by now, it's not easy for me to admit weakness - and say that I'm just feeling very emotionally raw and need to crawl into someone's arms to cry today. Silence. No big surprise. No one knows how to deal with me like this. Two hours later comes the response, "I can understand. Sorry I can't help." Read as, "this stopped being fun, now leave me alone."
At the moment I'm sitting on my bed. Arrogant Alpha Male is away on business and may want to play by webcam tonight so I'll have to cheer up by then (he's another one who can't handle when I get moody). I'd love to just curl up and cry and cry, and maybe I still will, as long as I can keep the oldest occupied. No child should have to see his mother go through that.
It just makes me think how much of my nature it is to provide emotional support for other people. If someone, even someone I don't know like black cock Pilot or a blog reader, is going through something difficult, it's on my mind, and I try to take the time to give a very thoughtful answer when I've come up with one. I try to listen, I try to reassure. Christ, I could tell you the names and history of every single person in Arrogant Alpha Male's company - I've helped him write business letters and listened to him rant on almost every topic.
But when it comes to me needing something, I'm alone. So very, very alone. But that's okay, right? I've said I need thicker skin. How else do you get thick skin other than through being burned and wounded so frequently that the scar tissue just builds up? It's a service.
You always hear that women are more emotionally needy than men. Maybe it's true. But maybe it's because we women naturally provide more emotional support for men than they provide us. Ten years of marriage and I can't think of a day I didn't ask X2B, "so how was your day?" And he never asked me that. The closest he came is if I came back from a business trip or meeting and he asked how that went. But if I had a longer answer than, "fine" he was already onto asking when I was going to the grocery store the next time or if I had sent a birthday card to one of his relatives.
Teeny Pass writes today wondering if men have a sixth sense that knows when they're about to lose something they want. She pulled away to the point that Paul actually did something nice, took her car to get washed, and they had a nice long conversation. She thinks maybe he knew his source of blowjobs was in peril, even though she loves the blowjobs. Either I don't give enough warning signs or the men I know don't have a sixth sense. That goes for my boss too. I've told him at least three times, once in writing, that I'm going to have to leave to earn more money, even though I'd rather not. He says, "you gotta do what you gotta do." If I walk away and they offer more money, I'll be furious for going through this stress.
There was one nice gesture today. One fellow not-so-far-away blogger sent me over 25 job descriptions he thought I might be interested in. The closest was 28 miles away and most were about 100 miles away, but it was still a nice thought.
