Flipping channels

Pete's gone to rehearsal until late tonight so I have time to process and think. I had another fight with Pete last night. They seem to be happening more often. The common denominator so far seems to be a lack of communication, and inaccurate assumptions. I don't think it will ever get better. He says it will. I want to move back to DC to find a job. He doesn't want me to go. I say I've made a huge mistake in coming here, he says I've enriched his life and created a home for us both. Why then, if all these good things he keeps mentioning are because of me, do I feel so miserable?

My attempts at starting a new life here have not been going well at all since day one. Three months have passed, and nothing is going right. How long does a person beat a dead horse before moving on? He told me the other night that it might be a good idea for me to go back to DC and find a job. He said he would support that idea, and would be encouraging of it. When I told him today that was exactly what I intended to do, he then says he doesn't want me to go. Neither choice seems all that great from where I'm sitting right now. I just feel like going to bed and sleeping for a few weeks.

The holidays always make me feel depressed anyway, and this one was no different. I get no calls from anyone, they don't wish me good tidings, they don't send me e-cards or Hallmark cards in regular mail, I get nothing. My family and friends don't seem to ever acknowledge me for the holidays at all. This bothers me. Pete says I could pick up the phone and call them, but that's just the point, I am the one who has to make the effort, in all things, all the time. I have made the effort all my life for those people, busted my ass for them all, so the past few years of my life I have been extremely fed up with always being the one who makes the effort. I want somebody ELSE to make the goddamned effort from now on. I want to feel like they miss me. I want to be missed, I want to be TOLD I'm missed, I want to feel like they really care. And I want THEM to make that effort.

But they don't.

I have two huge boxes sitting here, behind me on the floor, filled with presents. One box is for my mom, sister, brother-in-law and two nephews. The other is for my "best friend" and her husband and three kids, and her parents too. I usually ship the gifts at the post office or UPS, but this year Pete says we could drive to Michigan to bring them in person...of course, he said that BEFORE my job ended, so who knows if that will be possible or not anymore. I will give these presents to these people and I will receive nothing in return. They don't buy me presents. If they do, it might be something like a gift card, or a box of candy, nothing of any substance really. And Laurie, my "best friend" typically doesn't send me anything, but then remembers that she forgot sometime around April, and gives it to me for my birthday instead. I don't know why I buy presents for them anymore, really. I think this will be the last year that I will do it. Sure, I'll still send my nephews and Laurie's kids presents, but I don't think I care to send anything more to my family, or to Laurie and her husband. I am tired of giving and giving and giving but getting nothing in return from people who CLAIM they "love" me.

So when Pete says he loves me, is it any wonder why inside I cringe. Those who claim to love me, are usually the ones who cause me the most pain in my life. They don't seem to want to make the effort to take the time to really know me, or understand me, and that's all I really want is to be understood. Even Pete hasn't made much effort to understand me. I can tell you that it took Peter a long while before he truly understood me, but for the first time in my whole life, I really believed that he did understand me more than any other human on the planet. I send him emails, but I get a very short, abrupt response, telling me he'll write more another time, but of course we both know, that "other time" will never really come.

My friend Nikki from South Carolina came to visit me today, but I had called her and left a voicemail telling her I wasn't feeling very well and would have to cancel the visit...she unfortunately did not turn her cell phone on so she didn't get the message, and just showed up as originally planned. I was not in the mood to socialize, even with a good friend of mine that I have known for many years. I just wanted to be left alone. She didn't stay very long, but I know she probably figured out that something is not quite right here, just because I looked so miserable. She also commented that I didn't look so good. She even asked if Pete and I had ever had a fight...he quickly looked at me, and with a fake smile on his face, said, "Oh yes, we had fights even before she moved here." I just nodded and smiled. She said, "Well that goes with the territory though, it's normal." So I have the feeling she sensed that he and I were not exactly happy, and I'm sure the vibe was understood by her.

Pete wrote me a note after the fight, telling me how he felt and why he was upset, accusing me and making it seem like I was the bad guy, the one to blame, it's all me, and my fault...that's what I woke up to today. I do not like confrontation, so I sat down and wrote him an email telling him that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing in this relationship, I didn't ask for it, and I certainly wasn't ready to leave my life in DC behind, I can't find a job here, I'm miserable, and I should just pack up my stuff and go back to DC. He didn't read the email before he came downstairs to greet me when he woke up, and he was taken aback by my cold response to his wanting to hold me. I didn't want him to hold me or be anywhere near me. I wanted him to leave me the hell alone.

I'm feeling very fragile right now, uber-sensitive about everything, and unhappy all over. I'm going to go lay down again. But I was just sitting on the couch flipping channels on the t.v., trying to find something happy and uplifting to watch, to improve my mood. "Pajama Party" was on the TCM, which is a suck-wad 1964 movie that is too stupid to even mention...so I flipped from there, and found WITNESS TO JONESTOWN, so i watched that for awhile, good ole Jim Jones and his kool-aid cult...I was 10 years old when that happened, so it was interesting for me to watch it now, as an adult, but I realized as I sat there, that people suck, and always HAVE sucked, and always WILL suck, all through history, and all through to future infinity. Freaks, retards, losers, mental midgets, assholes, jerks, bitches...it only reinforced my feeling that I am better off alone.

I flipped channels again, thinking maybe I'd find something good somewhere. I found "Secret Stories of the ER," all about blood and gore, drug addicts, burn victims, and all that happy shit. I flipped again and found more goddamned depressing shit about the Jews in India being massacred by Pakistani terrorists, and how a 2 year old toddler is now orphaned for Hannukah. I found more happy horseshit on other channels, with hurricanes, landslides, famine, pets who need homes or will be euthanized, Sarah Palin whining and whimpering about how unfair the media treated her during the election, oh, and a group of teenagers who created some kind of VAMPIRE cult group and murdered one of their members' parents.

The world is a happy fucking place, isn't it.

So now I'm going to turn the t.v. off, and go to bed. I want to bury myself in my covers and stay there awhile.

---Sassy Girl

I thought maybe I would go and find my fake xmas tree today and start putting up decorations and stuff, but honestly I don't feel like doing that either.