Long Time No Post

I've neglected my blog a bit - and it shows. Its all for good reason, though (kinda.)

Keith's been gone all day over at his friends house playing video games and I've been working on random things here and there.

Things are a big weird between us at the moment. He hasn't even been home from Iraq as long as he was IN Iraq yet already he's taken over everything and changed the way that I've done everything for those 5 months he was gone. Its frustrating.

I thought that all that junk people say about when their men come home was a load of rubbish. No way would I get mad because he's put the towels somewhere that I haven't been putting them - that's dumb. Its insane that couples would fight over what day to do the grocery shopping! But for the most part its kinda true.

When you're forced to adapt to a foreign situation and not given any transition time - you quickly develop your own way of doing things. When you used to share housework you now do it all yourself and you find your own routine of things that you become comfortable with and maybe even enjoy. Then when your man (or woman I guess) comes home it all gets blown out of the water.

Maybe you enjoyed splurging on a caramel mochiato from Starbuck's once a week, but now you can't. It could be that you enjoyed doing the grocery shopping without a list and just getting things you liked, but you can't anymore. Perhaps you even stacked the dishes in the sink a certain way before you actually washed them, but now things are just all helter skelter in the kitchen. These all seem like small trivial things - but its hard not to take it personally when your significant other throws out your way and demands a different way.

It makes me miss the days that when I didn't want to cook I'd eat a bowl of rice with tons of butter and a couple spoons of sugar. I am so so glad my husband is home, but at the same time I resent him for changing everything that I worked so hard to put in order in his absense.

I don't want to say he doesn't respect me - because I like to think he does - but I think that maybe he doesn't think about things. He doesn't know how it was for me here at home because he wasn't here. He doesn't understand why I get frustrated when I ask him to do something and he doesn't do it. Well its because for 5 months if I wanted something done I had to do it - and now that I have someone to help I expect it to be done when I ask. Only because I am used to it being done right when I wanted it done because I did it myself. At this moment I am seeing just how complicated this whole matter is.

Even though I:

cook every night
Do the dishes
Make sure he takes bills with him to work so they get paid
Check account balances so that he doesn't overdraw the checking (he does it a lot)
feed the cat
do the litter box
wash the clothes
vaccum
pack his lunch (which sometimes involves cooking/packing a breakfast as well)

He just makes me feel like I'm useless. I'm the one who doesn't work so I should be just living it up at home while he's gone all day. That isn't how it works.

I quit my job on his advice. They weren't going to allow me to have the 15 days off immediately following Keith's return from Iraq and Keith said "Fuck 'em. Just quit." so I did. I quit my job. This is the job I took after hearing him bitch for 6 months (roughly) about how he feels he has too much responsibility and I don't. The job that he still reminded me almost daily that his job is harder than. The job that I would come home from and STILL do almost all those things listed above.

I haven't had a job since the 2nd week of September (he came back the last week of that month.) And even though while he was still in Iraq and promised me that 'this time' it would be different. This time he wouldn't belittle me and make me feel unimportant. This time he promised he wouldn't make comments about HIS money or things I'm not allowed to buy because HE thinks it isn't needed. It only took about a month for all those promises to be forgotten.

Day in, day out I am in this house. Sometimes I walk into the village to buy a pasty or some tobacco and papers - but that only happens once or so a month. I can't be arsed to walk the mile to the village if its raining or too cold. I just won't. Anyway - I'm always at home. I guess always being at home and having no interaction with the outside world apart from an occasional phone call, Ventrillo, or SL is his idea of heaven.

I've gone off on a huge tangeant but in a way I don't really mind. Its all stuff that's bothered me that we have either discussed a half million times - or I just don't have the energy to have a 'discussion' about. I'm just frustrated is all. We've done all this before - and now we're doing it all again.

He thinks I'm being immature in thinking that he's being controlling. I think he's just being more of a dick for clamping down even harder for no apparent reason. I can't spend a few bucks on a burger from Burger King cuz its a waste of money. BUT he can pretty much do whatever he wants because its his money (he reminds me that its his money any time I talk about buying something.) Am I just being immature? Afterall he's the one who works so technically it IS his money -- but don't I earn some of that by doing all those things in that list? I mean, that's sometimes a full 8-12 hours of work a day.

I don't know. I just know I'm frustrated with how things have been going. I feel like I'm kind of ignored in the equality department. Granted, last time I didn't work I expected Keith to do half of everything here at the house. I don't expect him to do that now - but I do expect to be treated equally. I don't like feeling that I'm less of a contributor just because I don't leave the house to work. I do work. if I didn't we'd live in a mound of filth and he'd never eat or have clean clothes.

Bah.

Men.

O M G

OMG.

Can't talk.

Keith's home.

BYE!!!

Much too Much

Some days I feel like I just have too much to do. Well those days only really started after Keith left for Iraq. Sometimes I feel a sense of accomplishment once I've done all the things I need to do - then there are other days I hate the Air Force for sending Keith to Iraq and making me do it by myself in the first place. One of those tasks is mowing.

Gardening is fun for me, but mowing is not. I hate to mow. I hate the sound of a lawn mower, I don't particularly like the wind blowing the grass clippings all over my arms and face, and I definitely hate the fact that the grass never seems dry enough to mow!

Even though I live in what's considered the driest part of England - it still rains more than 140 days a year. This means that one day of sunshine won't dry out the lawn, which then means that my front and back grass looks like a miniature jungle before its dry enough for me to mow ... and I hate that!

I bought myself a sexy Nikon D60 DSLR camera - but I am waiting for the correct SD card in order to start using it. I'm excited to take pictures even though I don't particularly feel inspired to do so. Its kind of hard to explain ... I guess I could try.

In my opinion, I've always been the 'creative' type - even though there are many times I severely lack in the talent department to see my creation through. Being with Keith has really changed my point of view of what's 'good' and what isn't as far as art goes - especially with my painting and photography. I think its because he's so supportive. Even if he doesn't quite 'get it' he still appreciates whatever it is. He's just awesome like that.

So far his deployment hasn't been AS hard on me as I originally thought it would be. Of course I've been depressed a bit - and quite lonely but I've found ways around pretty much everything. For a few weeks I couldn't sleep, but I recently learned that I can sleep just fine on the couch. The bed just felt so big, if that makes sense. I would wake up at random intervals and just lay in this vast darkness with nothing but the sound of Libby (our cat) snoring. BUT! On the couch I can flick on the TV and watch 15 mins of some random crap and pass back out.

I've steadily been losing weight - but it isn't ALL due to my diet. A lot of it is because I'm just not eating - which doesn't bother me - but I'm convinced its a side effect from the mild depression I'm going through. I'm not all dreary and weepy - its more of a manic state at this point. Lots of times I feel overstimulated or just overwhelmed in general and tend to just shut down. I won't talk for a day or two - then I get back to my somewhat normal self. I think such things are to be expected with a deployment though. At least I'm not going all psychotic or anything.

If we were living in America during his deployment, I think I probably would be a bit mental now. But in all honesty - I love England so much that just coming home after work feels good. Some days just sitting in the conservatory with a cup of tea is enough to cheer me up, but of course there are days that it isn't. There are days that nothing seems to pacify me and I just feel restless and stir crazy - which is why I say I'm in a mild manic state. Not chipper or hyper, and not all doom and gloom ... just restless.

I catch myself sitting here at the computer and hitting the refresh button waiting on an email reply from Keith, and I constantly have to tell myself to just walk away. There are days I have to force myself to go watch TV instead of sitting here with the cursor on the refresh button ... its sad, but true.

So yes - as soon as I get an SD card I will be taking pictures of random goodness which I will probably just post on flickr - but I'm sure I will share a few here since family and friends are more apt to check my blog than my flickr page.

I suppose that's enough bitching and whining for now - I should fold some laundry.

Alllll Byyyyy Myyyy Seelllffffff

Ha you know you're totally singing that song now!

Anyway, the adjustments so far haven't been all THAT bad. At first I was really scared thinking "Oh man what am I going to do with myself without Keith" but I think I've coped quite well. I think it was more mental than anything - and I've finally realized that I'm not ALONE I'm just by MYSELF!

Its been really nice that he can call me every other day or so - even though we really don't have much to talk about. We more or less end up repeating everything we sent in an email that one of us hasn't gotten the chance to read yet LOL! Still its comforting hearing his voice, and hearing that he doesn't sound stressed or anything - just a little tired which is probably just from jet lag.

I dropped him off Wednesday (the 7th) but pulled out before the bus did. I was whining the night before "Pleaseeee don't make me watch the bus leave!" and by golly I didn't! No way. I sucked it up for the most part, and had a lot of reasons to.

#1 There were a lot of people on those two buses. I'm sure they JUST got done doing what we were doing and didn't need to be 'set off' by seeing me bawling

#2 The other couple of wives there were totally stone faced - and they were toting babies! If they can handle saying goodbye, I can too damn it!

#3 I had a oral surgery appointment within the hour and thought I should be focused on that


So I shed a few tears driving to my appointment - but the bitterness of saying goodbye to my husband for 5 months was overshadowed with the fact that I was about to have two wisdom teeth cut out of my mouth with nothing but a few shots. Local anesthetic only - because I had no escort.

I sat in the car for about 10 minutes psyching myself up. I reminded myself how much of an awesome badass I am, and walked in the door. They took me into the oral surgery hall right away where I sat in that stupid chair that makes weird squeaky noises that almost sound like farts. Now, at that moment I thought that I was only having one tooth removed because A) Its military - they only take care of what is necessary at that moment and B) no one told me otherwise. I was wrong. Both bottom wisdom teeth were coming out.

No problem. I'd handle it. So the Captain doing my surgery gives me about 3 shots in each hinge of my jaw and walks out to let it numb up. Her assistant then starts talking to me while she's setting up the tray "Wow I can't believe you aren't being put under. I mean .. -everyone- elects to be put under." Immediately I panic a bit thinking that I've made the wrong decision, but still psyched up from my self pep talk I say "Well I don't have an escort because I dropped my husband off about a half hour ago to go down range .. plus I have a pretty high pain tolerance." She just kinda stood there silently for a moment and said "Better you than me, sister!" Oh god what have I done?

About 10 minutes later the Captian comes back, and yes I'm numb. She puts the random 'keep your mouth open' instruments in my mouth and starts cutting on my gums with what feels like a primary school kid's safety scissors. It doesn't hurt - I can just tell that its scissors which grossed me out a bit. Even though I couldn't see anything - I could just imagine what it all looked like. She makes a statement about seeing the tooth and starts trying to pull it. The lady did everything but put a foot on my jaw while pulling on the tooth to no avail. She then tries to crack the tooth to take it out in sections, which doesn't work either. Then she says "Uh ... ma'am? We're going to have to remove some of the bone."

Of course I can't answer her or I would have said "BONE?! What bone? Remove it? HOW!" but before I get a full paniced thought out of my head I hear what sounds like a table saw. Oh fuck. She's going to use that in my mouth! So she starts sawing and telling me while sawing that the roots of the tooth are fused to my jaw bone so she has to saw around it. Now it starts hurting, but of course I'm pretty much just powerless. 15 minutes pass by and she's finally done sawing and moves to the left side.

The same thing happens: scissors, pulling, splitting attempt "We'll have to saw this side too. Your roots are actually bent outwards at the end like fish hooks" More pain, more dizzy feeling from the vibrations in my jaw. Finally its all over and she packs my face with gauze and sends me out the door.

Of course I got meds. Not enough, if you ask me. 10 Oxycodone didn't even scratch the surface. My face was swollen, my cheeks were swollen, I was bleeding, and my jaw was bruised. Yes, this was an awesome decision.

I had taken Wed, Thur, and Fri off work and went back to work on Monday. Monday I was still in a lot of pain but had already taken all my pain medication. Tuesday the pain had gotten a bit worse. What did it feel like? Well it felt as if a dentist was drilling on my teeth without waiting for the numbing agent to fully take effect.

I rang up the oral surgery department and said "I'm miserable and I'm out of medication. I expected to be in quite a bit of pain after a surgery like that, but its been nearly 7 days and I am in more pain NOW than I was hours after surgery." They got me in immediately.

Come to find out I had dry socket in both sides. The person who saw me was amazed that I had somehow not completely lost my fucking mind going through all that pain for almost 7 days. "High pain tolerance" was all I said. He put some clove tasting shit on what looked like a packing peanut, crammed it into the incision point and within 10 minutes all the pain was gone. He thinks that I've had dry socket since the day after surgery since they had to saw so deep into my jaw to remove those teeth.

Luckily I have no more wisdom teeth and I stand a very high liklihood of never having to go through any of that again. I'm really looking forward to my first full night of sleep in a week :)

I'd also like to thank Willow for offering support during Keith's deployment. Right now I have a few good weeks of activities planned out (there's a Bazaar this weekend and next weekend is the annual Beer Festival in Cambridge, and a week or so after that is Strawberry Faire!) but I'm sure at some point the 'novelty' of being by myself will wear off and I won't be able to fill a Saturday with an activity like I can for the next 4 weeks or so.

So I"m off to bed now ... I hope no one EVER has to experience all that dental bullshit. I seriously was wishing for a coma at one point!