I Got Your Bitch

Don't flinch at the title.  Also, for the record: if spelled phonetically as I speak it, it should read "I gotchur Bitch."  It's a South End thing.

Jonas and I have been living together for a year now.  And, since I'm in a reflective mood, I've been thinking back over the past 12 months of co-habitation.  They were, if I'm being honest, the Longest. Twelve. Months. EVER.  Um, duh, I love Jonas, he's my penguin, my bestie, my boo.  But seriously, longest ever.  Ever.

Many moons ago a beautiful soul named Gator told me that if a couple can make it through their first year of marriage and come out smiling, they're good to go.  I'm going to assume that his prediction applies to couples living in sin.  I was married before and I came out of the first year with packed suit cases and squashed credit.  Jonas was married before and it lasted damn near a decade, so who the hell knows.

Jonas and I fought from day 1.  We fought over furniture placement, for cryin' out loud.  We fought over who was responsible for what, what time my alarm should go off, why I don't wake up with my alarm, who should get the bathroom first, how we should parent, or not parent, each others' kids, house guests, money, TV time, nail clippings, detergent brands.  The laughter diminished as swear words and animosity moved in and took up all the empty space between the ill-placed furniture.  I tried every approach to "talk" to him about it.  I tried active listening, lectures, texting, metaphors, crying, ignoring, reverse psychology, an actual psychologist and even some ugly ultimatums.  Every single time his response was the same: "Stop being such a bitch."  

I got your Bitch!

How frustrating is that?!  He has spent months blaming me for all our problems.  As though if some Bitch Fairy waved a magic wand that zapped all my bitchiness out, we would be just fine.  What a douche!  Some days it was so depressing and disheartening I wondered if I had made a huge mistake.  How could I live with a man who was so infuriating and inconsiderate?  How could I spend the rest of my life with a man who claimed I was "being such a bitch?"  

I got your Bitch!

But I stuck it out.  I kept thinking he would change, be better, nicer, more helpful, more considerate.  Every single day I came home from work and had to be the house (wait for it....) bitch.  Cook dinner, set the table, fix drinks, serve the food.  Grrrrr!  And he just sat there (like a douche) waiting to be...well, waited on.  Geez.

Then something REALLY infuriating happened.  It was late, my kid was asleep, Jonas was (of course) resting.  I went into the kitchen to get some Pepsi and realized there were no clean cups.  I was INSTANTLY pissed!  I scanned the counter, of course finding dirty dishes in the freakin sink and on the freakin counter.  Why the FUCK don't I have ONE CLEAN FREAKIN GLASS for my Pepsi???  

Then I had it.  My Oprah "ah-ha" moment.  I was pissed about the dirty dishes, because Jonas always washes them.  Always.  Twelve months, I had never noticed.  Never even thought about it.  Probably because I was busy packing for the all expense paid guilt trip he was about to take for never cooking.  

It really got me thinking.  What else hadn't I noticed?  The oil in my car.  Always changed.  My car insurance.  Always paid.  My alarm, wailing for at least 45 minutes every morning while I snored like a grown man, all right next to him.  My daughter.  He throws her onto her bed every night, sometimes like she's on a roller coaster, and she laughs hysterically and falls asleep smiling.

I got your Bitch.

The mail is always on the table when I come in.  I don't even know how many times I have sighed audibly and smacked it down on the DAMN counter to get it off the DAMN table so I can fix your DAMN dinner and serve you like a DAMN private chef.  How many times I've literally KICKED his shoes into a corner because they were in front of the door, maybe because he had just walked the trash to the corner and picked litter out of our yard.

I got your Bitch.

How many times have I fired a hurtful "your big ass coat doesn't go on the back of my chair"?  All the while, my clothes don't even leave room for oxygen in the closet.

Yeah.
I got your Bitch.


And its me.

I hate it that he's right.  Not because it means I'm wrong.  But because it means that for the longest twelve months of my life I was the antagonist.  The bad guy.  Not every single time, he's a flawed human like everyone else.  But all the horrible things I suffered were a product of my own ego.  All the while I was waiting for him to change, all I had to do was take his sincere advice, and stop being such a bitch.  So it took about three glasses of Flat Rock Red, a half a pack of Marlboro Special Blends and some real-shit soul searching to really admit to myself that the one who needs to change, is me.  This time, I gave myself an ultimatum.  I was either going to start focusing on all the fantastic benefits of our relationship, or set that poor boy free.  Because he's fucking awesome.  Like, legit.  And I don't ever want try to recover from losing him.  But more than that, I love him so purely that I couldn't stand the thought of him being stuck with a bitch out of loyalty.

Is it perfect now?  Don't make me laugh.  Do I still get frustrated?  Absolutely.  Do we still fight?  To the fucking death dude.

But not everyday, and certainly not over furniture.

Its whatev's

My mother, Karen, has said to me several times through-out history "How a person handles a disappointment shows a lot about their character."  She's probably right.  Think about it: if you see some snot-nosed six year old asshole at the Buy n Bag crying into his mom's crotch over a toy she won't buy for him your first judgement (shut up we're all judging him) is that he's a snot-nosed asshole.  Then you look to his mother and assume that she must be defective for having raised such a little Shit Box.  If you don't have children you're internal voice is saying "when I have kids they'll never act like that."  They probably will, by the way.  If you have children who are even semi well-behaved your internal voice begins a ticker-tape parade of being better than a stranger: "Shoo, I'm glad my kids don't act like that," or "My kid would never show her ass like that in public!"  If you are the mother of the Shit Box and your mom-jeans are now soaked with mucus in all the wrong places, don't feel bad.  All kids can be assholes, and there's a decent chance that it isn't because you're defective as a parental unit.  Maybe he's tired, or upset about something else.  Or maybe you've just spoiled him to the point that he doesn't realize what a turd he's being.  It's whatev's.

Anyway my point is that the Shit Box's reaction shows us that his character is less than appealing.  We can safely assume that he lacks humility, gratitude and/or consideration for his mother's reasoning.  We make this safe assumption because he has suffered a disappointment, and his reaction is bat-shit-crazy.

I, on the other hand, am a full grown Shit Box a lot of times.  But instead of crying, kicking, screaming and the like, I'm pretty passive-aggressive about the fits I throw when I don't get my way.  But we'll get back to that in a few.

As a child, my father's favorite punishment to inflict upon my sister and me was to write sentences.  For example: if I lied, I would be made to write "I will not lie to my father" about a bazillion times.  One of the most infamous instances of this punishment is the epic "I will not say ugh" sentence marathon of 1992.  Whenever my dad told me to do something that I didn't freakin wanna do my immediate reaction was to slouch my shoulders, throw my head back and say "Ugh!".  I had the opportunity to do this a few times before my dad was fed up and made me write the sentence 200 times.  Not a terribly difficult task, it probably didn't take very long.  But it wasn't the action of writing that I remember.  It wasn't how long I sat at the kitchen table or the 2 times I had to sharpen my pencil or the trip to the bathroom.  It was his reaction to my completed work that drove home the message.  I carried the loose leaf into the living room and held out my work to my father, waiting expectantly for the praise that was sure to follow for my flawless penmanship and follow-through.  And in that pivotal moment my dad taught me the most valuable lesson I had learned to date: how not to deal with disappointment.  Standing there, 10 years old, holding up what I thought he wanted, he didn't even look my way.

I held my breath, for about seven years, with anxiety rising in my gut, my eyes fixated on eyes that were fixated on the television.

"Here Daddy, I'm done."

Nothing.

"200, like you said."

"Throw it away."  His voice was distant, nonchalant.

"Don't you wanna see-"
"Throw it away."  My hand dropped.  Tears burned the back of my eyes, the anxiety churned and turned in my gut and became something ugly.  Anger.  Indignation.  Disappointment.  All this "feeling' welled up from my core and through my limbs and my forehead wrinkled and my shoulders dropped and before I even knew what I was doing I uttered the most heinous word in the English language.

"UGH!"

21 years later I still have flawless penmanship.  And I still say "ugh" (although now, in disgust rather than disappointment).  I don't know if he was crafting a genius plan to instill in me that ability to show grace during a let-down.  Maybe it was serendipitous.  Maybe I've just over-analyzed it until I gleaned from the experience what I needed.  It's whatev's.

According to Wikipedia, passive aggressive behavior is the indirect expression of hostility, such as through procrastination, hostile jokes, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible.  According to Carripedia (just made that shit up), passive aggressive behavior is the crap I do when you piss me off and I can't cuss you out or throat punch you because we're in public or at work or running late for something.  Sidebar: most of the time I will just cuss you out because you pissed me off.  It's been a long time since I punched anyone because I'm old and tired and my mom can't make bail.  

We all experience disappointment in one form or another.  Some are ongoing: a couple tries for years to get pregnant, a high school honor student is rejected by every university.  Some hit us out of the blue, knocking you back and robbing the wind from your lungs: being laid off from a job at which you really excel, finding out someone you admire is a fraud, discovering infidelity in a relationship.  All incredibly disappointing.  And we all react in our own ways.  Jonas (that's the boyfriend) is a champ at handling disappointment.  Small-scale example: if he bids on an item in an online auction and doesn't win, he just finds a comparable item and bids again.  Large-scale example: the company we both worked for down-sized and he was let go in the middle of a Tuesday.  He graciously thanked the assholes who canned him and moved on.  I, on the other hand, would be the Shit Box that anonymously flags the auctioneer as spam and keys the boss's car on the way out.  Because fuck you.  It's whatev's.

In the movie "We Bought a Zoo," Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) tells his angst-riddled teen that 'whatever' is the laziest word in the dictionary.  That may be true.  But in my humble opinion, it's the hardest working word in a person's limbic system.  Sidebar: That's the part of the brain that basically creates, or omits, or maybe controls emotion.  By saying, or more importantly, feeling, "whatever" about a disappointment is a conscious effort to dismiss something that has affected us, usually in a negative fashion.  I'm not talking about the What do you want for dinner? It's whatever whatever, I'm talking about the you got a metaphorical punch in the gut and it fucking hurts but you work through the pain and manage to put it behind you whatever.  The you didn't get the job, the pretty girl did whatever.  The My name is Carrie, I'm so very, fly oh my but you didn't notice because The Walking Dead is on whatever.  Is it the most graceful way to recover from a disappointment?  Probably not.  The healthiest?  I don't know I'm not a psychologist.  Does it work for me?  Most of the time.  Maybe it will work for you though.  Maybe not. It's whatev's.

Like, legit.

Lets start by laying the ground-work.  As I'm writing this hullabaloo I am 31, I have an 8 year old daughter, a live-in boyfriend who has an 8 year old son and we collectively (really mostly me) care for a stupid cat named Tyson.  I landed my dream job just a couple months ago, we have a cute house in a sleepy subdivision and my kitchen table is gorgeous.  Who says 'you can't have it all'?

Jonas (that's the boyfriend) and I just wrapped up Round 1 of the January Semi-Professional Mortal Kombat I Love You But Hate Your Face tournament.  I won on a technicality (I got the last word as I walked out of the room).  'What were we fighting about?', you ask: my dad called me today to tell me that he loves me, worries about me and to remind me that geographical distance can't hinder his ability to be there "in a split second" whenever I call.  So, obviously, Jonas needed to know that he is failing as a human being because he has never said those exact words to me.  Like, legit.

Sigh.

Dad also mentioned that our neighbor of 20-some-odd years died last night.  Still not sure how I feel about that one.  I'm supposed to be sad on some level because I've known her since I was 5, right?  I'm supposed to be happy on some level because she's now "at peace".  Right?  Maybe I'm supposed to feel some balanced mixture of the two?  I don't know.  Mostly I just feel satisfied that after my glorious (technical) victory over my arch-soul-mate-nemesis he helped me trouble-shoot an issue with the intranet I'm developing for work.

So that's our pattern; Jonas and I.  One of us picks a fight by throwing an emotional grenade.  The other matches the effort with snide rapid-fire sarcasm.  Then we go toe to toe, matching volume, hand-gestures, eye-rolling, mocking, name-calling and smug dismissal of each others' perspective.  Then I go smoke cigarettes and he eats Vienna sausages and we meet up later to laugh about the crazy shit we said.  It's pretty awesome.  Like, legit.

But I spoke the truth today.  Jonas has never once said "Hey, I just want you to know that I care about you, and that if you need me just call me and I'll be there."  He never calls to check on me or asks how I'm doing.  When I hung up with my dad I felt a sting in my heart parts because I can't remember the last time Jonas said "I love you" first.  I stewed in that for a good 5 hours at work.  Mulling over in my head all the awesome things Jonas never says.  "You look great!"  "Dinner was delicious."  "I'm proud of you/your work/your painting/the Christmas tree."  Nope.  I get the pleasure of hearing crap like "Your head is massive."  "It's chicken, you really can't fuck that up."  "Babe I don't give a shit about what happens at your work."  Like, legit.

What do you mean he sounds like an asshole?!?  Rubbish. (tehehe)  It's true.  He sounds like an asshole.  What's that other over-used phrase?  "Actions speak louder than words."  Yep.

So here I sit, smoking cigarettes at my gorgeous kitchen table while he eats aged cheddar in the bedroom (we're out of the sausages).  And I'm feeling that all-too-familiar sting in my heart parts.  This one's guilt.   When Jonas says "Your head is massive," he's usually stroking my hair and giving me this coy half-smile that sets off the butterflies in my stomach.  At dinner today when he said "It's chicken, you really can't fuck that up," he was headed to the stove for seconds.  And when he said "Babe I don't give a shit about what happens at your work," he meant it.  And I'm cool with that, because the last thing I want to hear about after my long day, is yours.  Like, legit.