That shrinking feeling

"Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun."

-- Time, Pink Floyd



The houses are falling off the market all around me. Now when I'm serious about needing to buy a house, they are disappearing! I sent Joanne a list of 10 or 12 and she wrote back that only three of them were still available. When she called to make appointments to see them, one of those was about to be taken off.

Grrrrr.

Joe has stepped up his assholeness. I didn't know he had all this in him. Tonight I made filet mignon, FILET fucking MIGNON, and he refused to eat it. He ate a bag of chips for dinner instead. Let his arteries clog his way, I say.

He has this strange habit lately of watching the baby cry instead of feeding him. That's charming. He does this ALL the time, except when he knows I need to breastfeed.

The most fun part is when he COMPLETELY ignores me when I'm talking. I know he's hearing me, but he pretends not to. If I told him I was going to key his Miata in the middle of the night, I am confident I'd get no reaction.

I was very angry when I went for my counseling session today. Joe wouldn't let me take the baby to the science center with the kids on Sunday, and instead kept the boy inside to watch hockey. I was equally mad that I didn't stand up to him.

But this counselor is good. I mean, he is goooooooooood. By the time I left there, he had me feeling like I could land Antonio Banderas by merely being in the same room with him.

I got a lot of insight into why Joe is acting the way he is. Perhaps Joe doesn't even know it. For instance, maybe, the reason Joe won't ask me to leave is because he feels guilty. He doesn't want The End to be his fault, so he subconsciously does things to put distance between us, thus driving me away. This may be true, and it's better than my theory: that he's a fucking pussy coward.

And the reason Joe wants me to leave? What 54-year-old wants to live the life of a 33-year-old, cutting grass and changing diapers? He had his mind made up how he was going to live out his days, and it involved association fees and a garage with enough space for his man shit. Not tripping over tricycles or shopping for back-to-school clothes. This, again, beats my theory: that he's an OLD fucking pussy coward.

In all seriousness, the counselor made me see that this shit Joe's got going on is really not about me. It's about him. Maybe it's really true when people say that. He also convinced me that people rarely change, especially 54-year-old fucking pussy cowards, and I apologize if any of those are out there reading this, but if you are, before you get offended and stop reading, let me give you some advice: DO NOT go out and knock up some young thang, thinking you can keep up like you did decades ago. Get a fucking vasectomy already. The world is capable of multiplying without you.

Now, that is not to say I feel like a victim. I did feel like one before my counseling session, but afterward, I felt like I was very lucky. I have a beautiful baby boy, and man, is he a blast. I feel almost guilty when I steal moments with him, knowing I'm depriving the rest of the world of a chance to see his blank stares and bobbing, drooling head. This time around, knowing a little more about what I'm doing makes it more enjoyable and less frightening, and no less fascinating.

And, I'm lucky to recognize my intuition, and smart enough to follow it. No, I won't have that happy little family I was trying so hard to force on us, but at least I can move on and leave open the possibility that I could find that with someone else willing to take on my little brood.

My counselor is very cute. Did I mention that?