Paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate

Giant-ass personal post

ALL. THE. BULLET. POINTS.  Includes - family bullshit, my dad being a psychologically-abusive douchenozzle, relationship…stuff, and work stuff.  [TW: psychological/emotional abuse, alcoholism in one section]  

This is from Monday; time-dependent references no longer correct until the section at the bottom.

Work

• I’m doing another bid run today.  Fucking hell nobody TELLS ME this shit until two hours before I have to leave.  What even.  I mean Ninah did say on Friday that I’d *probably* be doing it since it’s at the same location I dropped off the bid week before last, so I know how to get there and the building layout better than someone who hasn’t been there (Ninah knows the building well enough to have warned me about the parking situation, so obviously she could do it, and since this is a civil job and she’s a vertical estimator I don’t know why she’s not doing the bid run as she’s much more experienced with them than I am?), but it wasn’t anything definite, and certainly I didn’t realize we were talking about today’s bid, until Tracy came out to my desk and was like “hey btw you’re doing the bid run today”.  Great.  Thanks guys.  Love you all too.
• I’ve sorted out a much better system for keeping on top of things at work.  I’m very pleased with it and proud of myself for it.  A lavender legal pad, with the left margin as a “to-do” list with tiny bullet points that I add to or cross off as I get assigned stuff or do stuff, and the main text area for messages and phone calls.  At the end of the day, I get an email from iDoneThis, a task-tracking service I signed up for ($3/person/month for the business version that allows you to see coworkers’ lists and comment on them, but free for a single personal account), and I just reply to it with everything that’s crossed off from the to-do list on my notepad, which it adds to a calendar I can go look at whenever I want to.  Part of my shutting down for the day includes tearing off the day’s sheet and throwing it away, as long as everything is crossed off.  If things aren’t, they get added to the next day’s sheet before I leave, or get taken care of right then if it’s fast.
• This is to avoid a repeat of last week’s “Uh, did you send those subcontracts yet?” “Maybe…I thought I did; I know I sent a bunch of stuff to you.” “The subk’s weren’t in there.” “Shit.  Let me see if I can find them because I don’t remember what all went out that day.” fiasco, wherein I got a Talking-To from two of our corporate office people over it.  Never mind that I’d been extremely busy the week before (when the actual sending of things that were not subk’s happened) because FIVE BIDS IN TWO DAYS with Tanya not there and me having to both get bid docs prepped (which I’d never done before) and do a bid run (which I’d also never done before).  
• So now I will have a reference for “what all I have done today/this week” to look at if anyone asks “Did X?”
• I could’ve sworn I said this last week, but I couldn’t find a post that referenced it in my tags.  So I’ll say it now - I just filed my first expense report.  I’m fairly sure this marks some kind of milestone of my professional development or whatever.
• Also, $0.55/mile adds up fucking FAST.  It’s like $45 each for last bid run and this one.  O_O  (Plus of course I’m getting paid regular hours for it too.)

Family - this is the part that needs the TW

• My dad is an asshole.
• Like, a really fucking big asshole.
• My brother is in town for his last big leave before deployment in a couple months, so there’s been a lot of family dinners and meeting for lunch and planning to hang out.
• Dad had talked to me about maybe going sailing this past weekend, on Wednesday last when we had lunch together.  I’d said “maybe”, and we agreed we’d talk about it after he and Nick talked, and Nick and I talked.  
• Thursday Nick and Nicole and I met at Mom’s for dinner and hanging out. (And apparently turning Nicole into a Smurfette with blue hair dye?  Which was unplanned but lolsob hilarious.)
• Nick and I both got a group text from Dad around 7ish asking “what’s the plan re Sunday?”  Neither of us had an answer and we were busy setting up Mom’s new TV, so we didn’t reply.
• And then around 10:00PM we got another text - “So much for texting being instant communication!”
• Which was an instant alert.  We were 99% sure he’d been drinking.  Dad is a functioning alcoholic, has been since I was a young child.  Actually before that, according to the stories I’ve heard.  And when Dad’s been drinking, he’s a mean/angry/belligerent drunk.  There were a number of times in my teen years where he’d have stayed out drinking with his friends and I’d call my best friend and ask if I could come stay the night so I didn’t have to be there when he got home.
• Which is all to say, Nick and I know the signs pretty well.  Sarcastic angry text at 10PM?  Yep.  Drunk.
• Especially when it was followed immediately by a phone call to Nick’s phone, which he chose not to answer right away as he was in the middle of a conversation.  
• Then an immediate call to my phone when Nick didn’t answer, which I didn’t answer because fuck no I’m not talking to him when he’s drunk, I know better, and damn right I will avoid him all night if I have to because I just do not need that kind of stress in my life right now.
• Nick called him back as soon as he was done leaving me a voicemail.  Dad picked up, apparently growled at him, “So what’s the plan?” and when Nick said “I don’t know, how about you?” Dad replied “Whatever, call me when you figure it out,” and hung up on him.
• Nick did not take this well.  He texted Dad to tell him off for hanging up on him, to which my father’s extremely mature response was “FU”.
• And it degenerated from there.  My brother was deliberately being cold and arrogant and playing “poke the bear” as we call it, Dad was getting angrier and nastier and calling him names and trying to blame Nick for everything, and it was all happening over group texts so I got to watch the whole thing unfold.
• Which was not good.
• And this is where I maybe sort of admit that my dad was abusive to more than just my mom?
• He got lightly-physical with her once or twice - pushes or shoves, not hitting (that I know of anyway).  Got more physical with my brother once (again, that I know of).  He never got physical with me.  
• But physical intimidation and implicit threat was a big part of his control/domination/psychological abuse/manipulation/gaslighting bullshit.
• And I’ve shied away from ever accepting the label of “abuse” for what parts of it I dealt with, because I got off lightest of my family, and it was never physical, so can I really call it abuse?  And I feel like it would be appropriating the survivor label to think of myself that way.
• But fuck me if that wasn’t a legit triggered response Thursday night.  I wasn’t even involved!  Was just watching my brother and dad go at it over text message.
• But I was sick to my stomach and shaking and holding back tears and basically freaking the fuck out, though I didn’t show it.  Just watching the drunk angry nastiness going on between them was enough to give me an anxiety attack.
• And if that’s not a trigger I don’t know what is.
• So uh.  Not sure how I feel about that.
• [END TW]
• Anyway, I texted Ozz because I was feeling shitty and told him what was going on.  
• He asked if I wanted to come over.  I said “yeah…kinda.  But I understand if you’re busy, I don’t wanna impose.”
• So he said “It’s almost bedtime anyway.  You want to stay here tonight?”
• Uh…YES?  Is this even a question?  
• I asked if he was sure he was okay with that, because I didn’t want him having me over out of obligation or something.  He said yes.  So I packed up necessaries - he reminded me three times to make sure I brought contact solution and case, cause I have a bad habit of remembering everything but that - and went over.

Relationship

• We went to bed fairly soon after I got there, around midnight, since I had to get up at 6:30 for work.  He was…as cuddly as he always was before.  He’s the snuggliest guy I’ve ever known, always has been, but I didn’t expect it - I was fully expecting we’d each have our side of the bed and no big deal - but we got into bed and I curled up on my side facing out toward the room, the way I always sleep…and he moved close to me and draped one arm over my waist and we slept like that.  o.0
• By morning we’d moved apart - we always do, no matter how we start the night - but when the alarm went off and I turned over, he shifted to lay on his back and held out his arm, for me to curl up against his side with my head on his shoulder.  Exactly how we always used to wake up.  The alarm goes off, I hit snooze, then curl up on him for those few extra minutes before it goes off again and we get up.
• He went back to sleep after I left, but when I came back to the bed to let him know I was leaving and say goodbye to him, he held out his arms for a hug and gave me a kiss before he got back into his sleeping position and zonked out again.
• Like, these are pre-separation levels of physical affection.  I’m certainly not complaining!  It was just…unexpected.
• We texted a few times during the day.  I came home after work and hung out playing Xbox for awhile.  It got late and he asked if I was staying again.  I said “I don’t know.  That depends on whether you’re comfortable with it or not?”  He said okay.  So I stayed.
• I spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night there.  Each night it was “Are you okay with me staying?  Or do you want me to go back to Mom’s?”  And he kept saying he was okay with me staying, so I did.  
• Saturday and Sunday nights he didn’t come to bed with me, he stayed up until 2 or 3 with his RP buddies on STO.  I woke up when he came to bed both times, but stayed as I was.  And both nights, he got into bed, then either curled up behind me or just laid there and petted my back for a minute before rolling over to go to sleep.  Again…pre-separation kinds of affection.  
• We went to breakfast with my mom and Nick Saturday morning.  The way we used to.  I bought him half a tank of gas because he’s laid off right now and I’m working, so he could drive (because his car has more room, less crap in the passenger seat, and also A/C).  Breakfast was nice - we used to do this fairly regularly, but this was the first time since the separation.  
• When we were in the parking lot saying goodbye to Mom, she hugged him (they were pretty close) and said “It was nice seeing you.  I hope I’ll get to see you again…” not quite a full question, but it kind of hung there like one, if you know what I mean.
• I think I heard a hesitation before he replied, Mom says she didn’t.  Not sure if it’s that I know him better to hear it, or if she’s less panicky and less inclined to be looking for bad signs than I am.  
• But he said “You will.”  And it sounded fairly certain.
• Last night, he sort of seemed to be almost-hinting that he wanted me to go back to Mom’s.  But when I asked directly, “Would you like me to go back to Mom’s tonight?  Because I can.”  He said, “No, it’s okay.  I’m not going to go to bed with you tonight, I wanna stay up.  But I’ll come tuck you in when you’re ready.”  That, I didn’t ask for or expect.  It was an offer unprompted.  
• So I laid in bed reading tumblr for awhile, then called over into his room, and he told his buddies he was AFK and came out and laid down with me for a moment, gave me a kiss, and said goodnight before going back into his room.
• All weekend, meals were exactly as they used to be - “What are we doing for dinner?” “I dunno, we have the stuff to make X or Y, or we can go get something, what do you want?”  But it was just…the casual question, the assumption that we would be eating together.  
• It’s been…amazing.  And yet there’s the level of emotional intimacy and closeness that still isn’t there.  I’ll take what I can get, I mean, it’s still *progress*.  But it’s odd, the mix of familiar and distant, close yet strange, and I’m not sure how much to trust it or whether it’s genuinely progress or just a strange interlude of something.  
• Thankfully, I have a therapy appointment tonight, so I can talk to him about it and get his input.  

So uh, yeah.  There’s my life right now.  Shit is fucking weird as hell.  I am doing my damndest to parlay this into continuing progress in staying together/getting back together/unfucking our relationship/whatever you want to call it.

[ETA: Moar!]

• Donovan (my therapist) advised that I go back to Mom’s Monday night - he pointed out that emotional dependency/neediness/clinginess was one of the Bad Things of our past that I really don’t want to remind Ozz of right now, and that it would be a good sign of “I’m not going to try to take advantage of this opening to cling to you” if I went back home Monday after dinner (was meeting Mom and one of her sisters and brother-in-law for dinner after therapy), and said “I don’t want to overstay my welcome; I’ve enjoyed being home, but I don’t want to push, so I’m going back to Mom’s, unless you want me to stay.”  And then make good on that without being sad-face about it if he says “okay” instead of “stay”.  
• Donovan added that the outcome I really *don’t* want right now is for him to *ask* me to leave and then for me to be visibly hurt by it.  
• He also pointed out that if I just sort of hang out staying there for longer than a few days, it could force us to have the “So are you moving back in or what?” conversation before he’s ready to, which could lead to bad outcomes.
• So I took his advice, did dinner after my appointment, went home, went into Ozz’s room to talk.  
• I told him I’d had dinner with Mom & co, he was like “awww…I’m hungry though.” like he’d expected we’d have dinner, even though I’d told him I had dinner plans.  o.0
• I mentioned that Lynn is in town and that’s who we met up with, and he said “So I guess you want to stay here again?” because he assumed Lynn would be staying at Mom’s and I’d want to escape that.
• (I love my auntie, don’t get me wrong, but she is one of those people who WILL. NOT. SHUT. UP. EVER.  Don’t ever ask her about a book or movie or show because she will basically act out the entire thing for you in excruciating detail.  That sort of thing.)
• I replied “No, actually, she’s staying in one of her time-share things in the city.  I thought I might go back to Mom’s tonight; I don’t want to overstay my welcome or anything.  Unless you’d like me to stay.”  I didn’t make it much of a question because, well…I’m pretty good at hiding my emotions, even hurt and sadness, but he’s always had an uncanny ability to read me.  I don’t assume I can hide much of anything from him, so no matter how lightly I might say it, he’d see that his saying no would hurt if I made it so that it required a response from him.  
• He said “…okay.”  So I went back to Mom’s.
• Then yesterday, I had dance class, which is…here’s a rough map of how it is:

• So on nights when I have dance class and had stayed at Mom’s the night before, I grab my dance clothes and shoes and toss them in my car before I leave in the morning, then go home, spend the evening until I have to leave, get changed there, and go to class.  Then after class, I go home, change back into regular clothes, and (until last night) go back to Mom’s from there.
• Last night, class wasn’t until 8:30, so I got home around 5:45, we had dinner together, he went back into his room, and I veg’d on the couch watching Buffy on Netflix until I had to leave.  I left it with a partial episode running cause I didn’t have time to finish it, told Ozz I would be coming home afterward at least briefly.
• Dance class was awesome.  Didn’t totally kill any part of me!  My arms and shoulders and thighs certainly *felt* it, but not in the “oh god I can’t move” sort of way.  
• Went home.  Changed.  Talked to Ozz while I was changing, asked what time it was.  He said 10:15.  I was like holy shit, no way…but he was right.  
• I expressed disappointment cause I’d had that half episode I’d wanted to finish.  He said “go for it”, I explained that it would mean going back to Mom’s late and Mom would get irritable with me for it (sort of true, not as bad as it sounds, but mildly).  
• He replied, “Then just stay here tonight.”
• O_O
• YES PLZ
• ALL THE YES
• SO MUCH YES
• *ahem*
• “Okay.”
• But I didn’t have contact solution with me because I’d taken everything back over to Mom’s Monday night.  I said so.
• He jokingly was like “Okay nope GTFO!”
• I laughed and started to say “I could…”
• He said at the same time, “Or you could go down to 7-11 and get the little travel pack.”  Which is what I was going to say, because I used to do that if I ever ran out after the grocery store closed.
• HE WAS OFFERING A SOLUTION THAT WOULD ALLOW ME TO STAY THE NIGHT.  
• I cannot overstate this.  Huge deal.
• So I went to 7-11 and got my contacts stuff, plus a Rockstar and some Slim Jims for him cause he asked me to, and an ice cream for me as well
• Came home, watched the second half of the episode, ate my ice cream, talked with Ozz a bit cause he wanted to show me his newest toons on STO and tell me about the RP he’s planning with them (there was huge drama with a truly horrible person recently, and a friend of his had a toon who was very special to him that was coupled with one of the bad person’s characters, so his friend was sad cause now that story was gone.  So Ozz and another friend got together and created new toons to save that character and give it a new life).
• Went to bed, Ozz came and tucked me in again like before.  He came to bed later, and again, laid down and snuggled close to me and held me until we fell asleep.
• So the feeling I’m sort of getting from this and from him is that he’s not quite comfortable enough to actually ask me to move back in, or make any moves in that direction overtly.  But he likes having me home, and will take advantage of situations when he can to do that.  
• Still just taking this one day at a time, of course.  But…this is nice.  :-)
• And if you’ve read ALL OF THIS, I owe you a drink or something.  <3