s h e s a i d

crabby

it has been mostly smooth sailing with a few bumps nothing i think worth keeping track off but i thought it would be nice to put it on here that she is in fact now thirty .. a milestone birthday and all. i was reading time out and the public eye section was featuring this 30 year old guy who looked like a regular student and talked about his life .. the life he had before he was comfortable in his own skin and then he started all over again i guess .. " in his late twenties "

she's been a little crabby all day yesterday and today - not all the time but enough for me to notice and i am starting to think that i don't have the patience i used to have for crabbiness and for that i sending out an universal sorry. not for not having the patience but for expecting you to now - over night - be a thirty year old. whatever that means to my head! i'm feeling a little bit of urgency to get "there" already where i can sail by days a little bit more smoothly. it's easy i think for us to be happy - which in all fairness - is a very very good thing.

pendulum

she has this godawful period, the kind that seems to suck her guts out. she hasn't gotten around to a obgyn exam yet because something is always up. a larger problem with both of us to not be on top of our health issues. but thats a different rant i think. in any case, the times that she is sick - menstrual pain, stomach ache, back ache, fever, whatever... i am never good enough! i don't care enough, feel sympathy enough, or am nice or kind enough.

i'm just a shit person all around for her when she's sick... can you picture it? she's laying in bed writhing in pain, crying.. i walk in try to give her pills, she tells me to go away.. i come back with alternative pills / pain management.. she doesn't want to take it .. i tell her to stop making a fuss.. she tells me she's not making the fuss i am .. i should just go away.. i go away.. she tells me i don't care enough.

i tell her to please let me help .. please please let me help

(i am always reminded of that scene in jerry mcguire in such moments - click here if you want to watch it on youtube)

that was last month.

this time, i'm at work - it's my busiest day of the month, nay, busiest day ever

i come back from a meeting and see her offline message at 2.30pm asking me to leave work and come get her

i message her back and tell her i'm really sorry i can't because its a shit day at work but i can leave at 5

she tells me she's in a lot of pain and can't stay at work

i tell her to call a cab please - i can't seem to get out because we have a lot of people visiting

she tells me she'll wait

anyway, we talk online - i leave at 5pm exactly.

once in the car, she calls me constantly - i know she's in pain so i tell her i am trying to get there as soon as i can. i ask her where she is - she tells me she has left work and is waiting in the lobby of her office. we have a bad connection and end up getting frustrated with each other on the phone. she might have mentioned that if it stops raining she'll take the subway and i might have mentioned that she should have stayed at work. we were both retarded.

i get there - she tells me .. "jokingly" that i am a shit person for not loving her enough

i don't take care of her she said

she wanted vietnamese sandwiches - i call ahead and order for pick up

she tells me that if she was dying - i would order a latte and send her flowers

i have motrin and water for her so she's starting to feel better.

at 4.30 in the morning - middle of the night - i am woken up by her going to the kitchen where she's warming up the "hot pad".. she holds it to her stomach, she's got a painkiller and i rub her back / shoulders to bed.

in the morning when i smile at her she asks me ... very nicely ... why i can't take care of her? why don't i take care of her? do i not love her? and then she is upset because i stopped smiling.

bad taste

it is in bad taste to blog about something close to you i think but then perhaps sending it out in the virtual void is the only way to go here so i can breathe. i hate feeling this way, and i hate that we are doing this to each other. everyday.
let me tell you my story from this morning - i'll put it in bullet points so that it makes sense inside my head
1. she is studying for the ny bar exam - it's a big deal
2. she has already attended the shiniest / bestest / awesomest course to prepare for the exam
3. she attended it last year - so she's a bit rusty but not that much
4. i figured i'd get a trained / shiny / barbri tutor who is now a lawyer type dude to help her clean it all up just before her exam - you know, help her, advice her, give her pointers that kind of shit
5. i looked everywhere and i found this really nice ivy league good with foreign trained lawyer kind of tutor - not too expensive either
6. i wrote to him - three times in all and he wrote to me - three times in all too
7. i forwarded the emails (3 from him 2 from me) to her - she decided it was my maternal instinct kicking in - not pleasantly
8. on gtalk - at work - we embarked on a 6 hour he said she said - only in this case you said i said situation
9. i insisted that i was merely trying to help and she could by all means say no thank you to the dude
10. she insisted that i was somehow overstepping my acceptable boundaries of relationship duties and ought not to represent myself wrongly to some strange dude - who's opinion seemed to matter to her a whole lot more than my peace of mind... orrr.. her work!
after few jabs at my previously failed relationships / my mollycoddle instincts as well as my inability to understand her fundamental opinion - i have come to one logical conclusion
DO NOT HELP
do you get this?
please don't try to help. it backfires. always. obviously all this extra time on your hands should be spent in exercising.
or finding yourself the next big money making scheme.
or diet pill.
but not in trying to think about the people you love because they don't like it.
no one actually wants you to find happiness like the bible - you know where helping someone makes you happy. you are wrong in assuming the world likes you to help. so wrong.

morning light

i hate when my memory doesn't keep up with me.. especially because last night i was wondering if i'd ever forget the nonsense she and i go through for no reason!

from what i remember, the day looked something like this:

we woke up, she took the dog out, got dressed, drove to work in general awesomeness, skipped getting cafe together because of an unusual rush for her and me to get to work on time...

we exchanged deep emails at work and i picked her up en route to home. we grabbed and shared a delicious sandwich from s'Nice... truly, one for the books as a fabulous sandwich forever.

later she made dinner for mum and me and outdid herself - it was perfection.

she locked herself in the room and worked at her bar prep for a couple hours, i spent that time huddled in front of the tv with a relatively annoying toe pain that didn't want to get better.

as we're wrapping the day, she discovered the puppy's pink/brown/red fur on his left paw and decides he's sick/bleeding/fat. she also confesses that she's been feeding the puppy not agreed upon food amount with not agreed upon fish oil. then lapses into self pity about how she's killing the pup. for someone who claims medical superiority because her parents are docs, she does some pretty illogical things with herself.

i then decide (wrongly) to inform her of her other illogical and "perhaps fatal" actions - tissues she leaves around the house that result in the puppy attacking it and ingesting it and then spending the whole day and night wheezing. giving the pup extra dry and wet food so he gains shit loads of weight and then taking out her frustration at him whenever she feels like it. to which obviously she resented and i resented her for resenting me!

after we were done attacking each other about the pup, i started to un-make the bed to sleep. i dropped a bottle from the dresser (my attempt at aiming the pillow on the chair, i will never be a basketball player) i asked her to pick it up please (nicely).. she made a huffing noise.. i picked up the bottle myself... she got mad cos i assumed she was huffing when in fact she wasn't! aaargh...

i wasn't upset about picking up a bottle that i dropped in the first place! then we were mad at each other all over again.

so, the questions to think about in the morning light are:

1. when does this back and forth stop?

2. is it possible to change the way you communicate?

3. when things getting petty, can one person change the relationship for the better?

4. if yes, how?!

the calm

apart from some minor obstacles, we have reached a silent agreement. it is hopeless for me to pretend that i am "easy to get along with" since that is not true. my mother agrees that i should just stop pretending. i demand and insist and do all the whingy whiny tactics that can get over the top dramatic.

new day

wednesday morning: she woke up before me - smiled - and i felt good.

she made me breakfast of things i love, things that taste good.

she walked the dog - before i was showered.

the day is new and the day began good!

wednesday afternoon: she sends me sweet texts and messages me online.

she still needs to over explain her point, but she is making an effort.

i appreciate so much that she is in fact keeping her word to try to be different. am i wrong in wanting to "change" her. i am determined to give my best too.

she asks me to pick her up from work - "please"

i am annoyed, i told her i would in the morning right after breakfast.

lost in translation - she tells me she was simply "confirming"

i am overanalyzing BUT

until i told her i had already offered to pick her up ... the word "confirm" just wasn't in the conversation. small things. too small a thing to make a point out of it.

but conversation must be properly communicated otherwise what does it all mean?! i know, it means that i am an insufferable person to get along with.

frivilousness

tuesday morning: she wanted to take the subway and she suggested i do too. it was from a good place but we have discussed this many times before. it makes me feel like she doesn't want to have that morning ride with me.

tuesday noontime: i surprise her by sending her a box of chocolates delivered to her work. she "teases" me and doesn't tell me she has them. but then confirms she loves them.

tuesday afternoon: she calls around 5pm (i have just come out of a meeting) she is in acute pain but instead of communicating what really is going on, she yells and acts out and is exceedingly rude. she explains that she's not mad - but how can she not be, when she is yelling. she does not tell me she is in pain and wants to go to the ER. she does mention that she has some pain later.

tuesday afternoon within an hour: i tell her i am leaving and will pick her up from her building. she tells me she will walk to me. i tell her i'd rather pick her up since she is in pain. she walks towards me instead.

tuesday early evening: we are in the car, she tells me she loves her chocolates. her face doesn't match. she is in pain. i know so i allow it. we stop to pick up mediterranean food to go. i ask if she wants any. she tells me she doesn't. later at night, she complains that i didn't get any for her. i am a shit girlfriend.

tuesday evening: i ask her if she's taken any painkillers. she tells me she hasn't. i ask her if i can give her some. she tells me she'll take them herself. i ask her twice more. she repeats she will take them herself. i stop. when we talk, she tells me i should have given them to her anyway.

i am upset.she gets the bottle and is struggling to open it and then comments about how unhelpful i am.

we fight. i cry. she cries. she tells me she doesn't like that i don't love her like i used to. i ask her if there is something wrong in what i'm doing / saying.

she tells me i have changed.

we fight some more.

we decide tomorrow is a new day.