One More Time For All the Old Times

So, it's been 22 days since the meltdown. Not very good of me to broadcast evil tidings and then disappear. Does anyone wonder what's happening? I do. Wonder…

I wonder…is this how other couples fight? It feels so out of the ordinary to be us. We don't have those loud, "he said, she said" arguments. We just seem to suddenly realize how miserable we are. With each other. To each other. And then we try on the idea of being apart. But it just hurts so badly, feels so empty to be so far apart from each other, that we make up our minds to give it one more try. And one more. And one more.

In fact, we had to make it work, at least for a little while. Right in the middle of our biggest event of the year, the one where my whole family is involved, was not a good time for us to come apart. So, as things tend to go, we held it together for the benefit of other people, and found we do indeed still have something we want to hold together. So our fragile truce is holding. Sometimes, the bond between us feels like titanium…other times, like spun glass.

Have I mentioned that I am one of those people who always has music running through her head? Sometimes it's a song that has no meaning…something I've heard on the radio that sticks like glue and plays over and over until I'd happily unload a .44 into my skull just to get rid of it.

But sometimes it's something sent to me…by Someone, from Somewhere. A couple of days ago, I got this song… And I realized it's now Our Song:

Whatever it is, it will keep 'til the morning

Haven't we both got better things to do?

Midnight blue…

Even the simple things become rough;

Haven't we had enough?

And I think we can make it

One more time, if we try

One more time for all the old times…

For all of the times you told me you need me

Needing me now is something I could use

Midnight blue

Wouldn't you give your hand to a friend?

Maybe it's not the end…

And I think we can make it

One more time, if we try…

One more time for all the old times…

Midnight blue

I think we can make it…I think we can make it…

Wouldn't you give your heart to a friend?

Think of me as your friend….

And I think we can make it

One more time…if we try

One more time for all of the old old times….

--Melissa Manchester/Carol Bayer Sager

Awash

Yesterday was not a good day.

It took me longer than usual, after the "signing up" discussion, to digest and absorb the information brought to light therein. But, a week and a half into it, I thought I had built a pretty good foundation for a bridge, leading back to a tolerable status quo in my marriage. Turns out the bridge was made of tin foil instead of steel. It was easily brought down by the husband, with one unwarranted accusation.

As luck would have it, my sisters were in town and got to witness the…well, I won't call it a fight, because we actually didn't argue very much. It was basically a meltdown. MY meltdown. MY coming to terms with the fact that my marriage was probably irrevocably damaged, and I couldn't face living out the rest of my days in the context of this crumbled, non-functional relationship.

There has been this issue of "fault" haunting the husband and me for quite a few years. When things go tits up, and we are both miserable, we seem to invest a lot of energy into whose fault it is. And you know, I really hate that. I hate that fault-finding has become a standard of our society, and I particularly hate that it has invaded my marriage to the degree that it has. But there it is, nonetheless.

So Sunday afternoon, with my sisters in tow, I drove…anywhere. Away from the most recent demonstration of my being not much more than the primary irritant in my husband's life. One sister made a stab at trying to play marriage counselor. "I think," she said, "that you both need to stop trying to blame each other. It's clear that he thinks everything is YOUR fault…"

Now, the circumstances of our married life have found me taking the role of instigator most of the time. If I hadn't, I truly believe we would never have gone anywhere, achieved anything, or made any changes at all in our lives. I dragged us out to Oregon to be with my family. I yanked us away from our life in Eugene to follow a job opportunity. I took us back there when the job failed and my life fell apart. I needed a life, so we bought the restaurant. Our entire married life has consisted of me trying to make it work, and him coming along with me, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. So when things go badly for us, it IS more than likely my fault, to some degree. And I have to live with that.

So when my sister declared that we were each trying to blame the other for our problems, I couldn't entirely buy that. "Don't you think," I asked, "that I carry around a ton of guilt about everything that has gone wrong with our lives? I'll always have that. I'm not trying to say everything is his fault. I'm just trying to say it's NOT ALL MY FAULT. It can't be. I can't own the blame for every bad thing that has ever happened to us. If I did, it would kill me."

I don't know why, but this time, the hurt wouldn't go away. I tried hiding it under some "retail therapy," (shopping at the Goodwill with my sisters.) It just got worse. I dropped my bundle of possible purchases on a convenient rack, went out to sit in the van. And just…cried. And thought. And cried some more.

In fact, I spent most of the day in tears. I haven't cried so much in years. But I was thinking, and planning, and, saying goodbye, really. To my life. To my home. To my restaurant. To everything I believed had been poisoned by, or was poisoning, my dying marriage. Because I had decided that if my choice was going to be between continuing in a relationship where I was nothing more than the biggest pain in my husband's ass, or being alone, I would choose "alone."

Life is too short. The idea of spending my remaining days, however many or few they are, with someone to whom I am barely tolerable on a good day…just didn't appeal anymore. If my fate—my burden—was to fuck up everything I touched, then I needed not to be touching anyone else. I could take full responsibility for screwing up my own life. But I could no longer bear the burden of messing up another person's life along with my own.

We've had Serious Arguments in the past. With increasing frequency, in fact. As time has gone on, I've begun to think I've worn out my welcome as a partner… as I always suspected I would, from the very beginning. And I have said to him, "You know, if you would be happier doing something else or with someone else, you need to do that." I have given HIM permission to leave. But of course, husband being husband, he would never do it. This time, I understood that if the hurt was ever going to go away, if the changes that needed to be made to point us toward peace were ever going to be made, I had to make them. I would have to be the one to say, "I give up. This needs to end. I will leave." Things end. People change. Nothing is forever. No one stays. That is the way of life. I get it.

For the first time in my life, I thought about dissolving the union. I made lists of what would need to be done and in what order. I would find a place to live and move out. (Or should I ask him to move out, and pay for an apartment for him closer to work…since one of the things he has recently confessed is that he hates the house and doesn't really care if we live here anymore…) We would sell the restaurant. And as soon as that was done, I would take any money left over from that and find somewhere to live. Somewhere. Far away from here.

And then he could either have the house (since HE pays the mortgage) or not. Whatever he chose. And if he sold the house, I would ask for some small sum of money from the sale, and that would be that. He would probably move back to the Midwest to be with his family. And it would be over.

I planned and I thought and I said goodbye all day yesterday. And I cried. Pitchers and pails and flasks of tears. I couldn't stop.

Last night, after everyone went home, we talked.

Truthfully, I don't remember most of the details of the discussion. Maybe some things were ironed out. Maybe some hurts were apologized for. Maybe some promises to do better were made. All I know is, enough was said that it gave me hope that we might be able to live amicably together for a few more years. Or months. Or weeks. I don't have to leave. Now…

But I also know…that I can. Leave. If it comes to that.

And that is a powerful thing to know.

Signing Up II

"Not what I signed up for…" I couldn't shake those words for days. Brooded about them almost non-stop. I thought I could bury them under work and other concerns, but they kept rising to the surface like a fresh corpse. For me, there is no such concept as, "Ignore it, and it will go away." I can set things aside until they lose their sting, and go back and deal with them later. But I can't just pretend they never existed and go merrily on my way.

The pronouncement that any endeavor, thirty years in, is not what one signed up for is, at best, grossly immature; at worst, blindly narcissistic. Either you went into the thing thinking you had no particular expectations, and now find that any vague picture of fulfillment and happiness you might have had in mind does not resemble what has actually come to pass… Or you had a specific agenda (that did not take into account any other person who might have been involved in the endeavor along with you…say, a life partner, for example…) which you suddenly realize has not been accomplished. And probably never will be. And time is running out.

So, what? Is the husband a hopeless Peter Pan? Or is he an unfeeling taskmaster ruled by schedules, goals, and quantifiable results? I don't think so. I think he's just feeling tired and old and a bit overmatched by his life. To say that we have a lot on our plates right now would be a laughable understatement.

We may have, in fact, "signed up for" a little more than we are actually capable of accomplishing, at this stage in our lives. At an age when most people are backing off the throttle and beginning to coast into retirement, we are working harder than we ever have. There is a physical and emotional cost to all this, which is harder on a couple of semi-centenarians than it would be on a pair of twenty-somethings. But there are two ways to look at it, really. Though it can be said that, after thirty-plus years together, we'd rather be relaxing in our side-by-side recliners than fending off challenges to the emotional well-being of our partnership; it might also be true that if our relationship did not have that thirty-year strong foundation, we may now be chucking everything, turning our backs on each other and on the challenge, and going off in search of something more fun and more immediately gratifying. Isn't that what children DO these days?

Part of the problem with the husband is that he is NOT the type of person to TAKE control of life. He is happy when he has the underpinnings of job, home and family, and then he kind of takes whatever life happens to build upon that foundation. Oh, he's a hard worker. Tireless and obsessive to the point of workaholism, in fact. But he's not particularly creative or idealistic when it comes to what the job is. His credo is that you do whatever your employer demands, and then some. And you never, NEVER ask for a favor, or preferential treatment, or even for some things you might have earned or deserve after a term of dedicated and faithful service. Which would make him anyone's dream employee. But which also makes him suck as an entrepreneur.

Because you have to realize when you work for yourself, you are not only your own employee, you are also your own boss. Which means you work hard, yes. But you are also the person responsible for rewarding that hard work. If you try to do one without the other, you burn out very quickly. Which, unfortunately, is the place where the husband finds himself at this moment. He still has his "day job," where he works very hard and has been consistently under-valued and under-compensated for sixteen years. But now, rather than coming home and going to the gym or puttering around the garage or whatever else he used to do to let off steam from work, he has the café to work at and worry about. To the point of obsession. And he can't put himself into the mindset that HE is the one who has to take control of some aspects of his life, to tweak it so that it doesn't turn him into a smoldering cinder. He just works and works and works, and then gets put out with me because our life is "not what he signed up for."

For my part, I believed him when he told me that he wanted to partner with me in owning the café. I believed we were setting ourselves up for the time when his job would go away. Which looked imminent four years ago, but these things have a way of dragging out way longer than seems possible. So he's still toiling away for the sinking ship AND trying to help me run the restaurant. Of course, this is an impossible situation for him. But it's just as impossible for ME to run the café without a partner. Especially now, when I don't think I could buy a decent employee with a winning lottery ticket.

We are stuck, he and I, in this protracted limbo…responsible for almost more than the two of us can physically handle. I don't think either of us would have signed up for this had we known it was going to play out this way. But it is what it is, and we have to not only work, but THINK our way through it. It's the thinking part, the planning part, the pro-active "I have to fix this so that it can work for me" part that the husband is not so good at. And, truth be told, he gets pissed off at me when I try to do that part for him. Or suggest that he do it. "This is the only part of my life that I have control over!" he whined to me the other night during the discussion that spawned the whole" signing up" remark.

Fine. Then control it, goddammit. If you won't let me help you fix it, then deal with it yourself. But don't whine to me about what you did and did not sign up for.

Fix. It.

Wow. That was amazingly unsupportive, wasn't it? But it felt SO good…!

Whatever. I'm pretty sure we'll ride out this storm, as we have so many over the years. But sometimes, feeling exhausted, partnerless and friendless all at the same time just…sucks. And this, this blog, is the only place I have to go with this stuff. So I won't even apologize for whining.

Signing Up

What does it mean when your partner tells you that your life is "not exactly what I signed up for?" After more than three decades?

What DID we sign up for, exactly?

What did we know, at twenty and twenty-one, about a relationship that would span almost as many years as our combined ages?

I always thought we got married because we were too stupid not to. We were "in love." That's what people did when they were in love. They got married.

Were we signing up for something? I wouldn't have had a clue what to ask for or where to sign for it. And I've always believed that cluelessness, that naiveté, that "What the hell, let's just DO it!" …was mutual.

Evidently not.

After thirty-five years, I find I am not what he signed up for.

I have no idea where to go with that…

Small World

"To the world you may just be somebody....but to somebody, you may just be the world."

I saw this posted on somebody's facebook status today.

It's supposed to be inspirational. Why am I not inspired?

Could it be because I'm pretty sure I am NO ONE's world...?

Ups and Downs

It's been a day of good and bad.

Had to work. Bad.

Got a lot accomplished. Good.

It's my birthday. Good.

I'm 55 years old. Aauugghh!

Got lost on the way to where I was supposed to buy my birthday present. Bad.

Went shopping somewhere else instead. Bought two shirts, a pair of pants and a jacket—all on sale. Good.

Argued with (at?) the husband. Sigh! Bad.

Found good pasta and Marie Callenders' pie for dessert. Good.

Drove directly beneath two eagles soaring and wheeling over the highway. My first unambiguous eagle sighting in many moons. Thinking this is an excellent omen for my fifty-sixth year on the planet.

The best.

Double Nickels

Bleh...

The Wrap-up

Monday morning, and I feel like today is the first day of the rest of my life. That giant catering job has been strapped to my back since mid-May when my chef crapped out on me. Now, I wish I hadn't worried about it so much. The facility we worked in was huge and well-stocked, we got all our prep done handily a few days before, and things came together quickly and beautifully (thanks to Chef Hope) the day of the wedding. Not only did we NOT run out of food, we have tons of leftovers. Which, as a business owner, I should be unhappy about…but all I wanted to do was make sure everybody got some and that it was good. And it was!

But of course, the day could not have gone off without some kind of attack by the Bullshit Squad. It would have been too much to ask for my staffing woes—which have gone from annoying to scary to unbelievable to ridiculous—to abate for just this one day. The "experienced breakfast cook" I hired three weeks ago ( pretty much so that I would have someone to run Saturday breakfast while Chef and I concentrated on this catering job) got her nose out of joint when she received her first paycheck on Friday and decided to terminate her employment with us by no-show, no-calling on the day she knew I needed her most—the day of the catering job. Classy. Very classy.

I ended up having to stay at the restaurant through breakfast, and then going out to the catering site. Which, in the end, was just as well, because we were SO well prepped that there was a lot of "hurry up and wait" going on. I had sent Chef and her assistant over to the church kitchen at 8 am, service was at about 3:30, and there were really only a couple of hours of real work to be done. As it turned out, our very capable lady Chef had everything well in hand, and all I had to do was throw a couple of chicken breasts around at the very end, serve the guests at the buffet line, and clean up.

So now, on this gray, yucky, cloudy day that seems to be part and parcel of summer 2010 in northwest Oregon, I'm ready to start MY summer in earnest. I have no idea what that means, really. But I just want to suspend the work and worry and planning and scheming for a couple of weeks, and grab a little gusto out of whatever the rest of this summer has to offer.

How about it?

Learning to Trust

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for us. Another "first" for the café. We'll be catering entrees for a wedding reception. To the tune of 250 guests. Wow.

I made this commitment way back in late winter, when I was counting on the services of the lately departed California Chef. (Who, by the way, bounced back handily from his unfortunate experience with his succeeding position, and is now employed by the restaurant right across the street from his most recent ex-employer. Sigh!) Believe me; when California Chef flew the coop, I was more than a little cowed by the scope of the job. But since CC left us a mere six weeks before the wedding date, I didn't feel comfortable telling the customer (who is also my hairdresser and a friend) that she would have to make other arrangements. So I sucked it up and decided, come hell or high water, we were going to make this happen. And do a good job of it, too.

So, tomorrow is the big day. And, truthfully, I'm feeling (perhaps uncharacteristically) confident. The food is simple—things that I personally know how to make, rather than the slightly off-the-wall hairball haute cuisine that California Chef often came up with. I'll be assisted by the Dear Husband, Chef Hope and an intern from a Portland culinary school. Everything's good. Right now, I'm sitting on my deck enjoying a glass of wine and engaging in my alternate passion. Tomorrow morning, everything will fall into place. And by this time tomorrow evening, it will all be history.

Dear husband, on the other hand, is completely unglued by the enormity of the commitment, and is fussing in every direction possible. He feels like a helium balloon with a defective gyroscope, and I'm trying to keep him from flying off in weird directions, or flying away altogether. Tonight, sitting in the car returning from a short buying trip, he confessed he was really freaking out about this whole thing. (No, duh?) And I said, "What's the big deal? It's easy stuff, we have most of it prepared already, it's not something we can't do. Do you see ME freaking out?" "No," he said. "And that's what freaking me out."

"That's silly," I scoffed. "Sometimes, you just have to trust yourself."

A couple of years ago, I could no more have said that than I could have quoted the Koran in Arabic.

Maybe I have learned something.

Not Likin’ Me Much….

Sleep deprivation and stress seem to be turning me into a person I really don't like very much.

Time was, when I hired a new employee, I could observe how that person learned, analyze his/her talents and strengths, ferret out the weaknesses, and—taking all those things into account—almost immediately turn that newbie into a functional member of the team. Not so much anymore. I just do not have the patience.

Three weeks ago, I hired two young men—one twenty-two-years old, and one twenty. Each of these kids possessed a resume that included some months served in some kind of commercial cooking environment; and each had some degree of formal culinary schooling. On paper, they appeared to have what it took to make them successful candidates for a cook's job at the café. Yet it took less than three weeks for both of them to go down in flames.

I'll just say here and now that, after all the staffing hassles I've encountered since buying the restaurant four years ago, I take nothing, and I mean NOTHING, for granted. I no longer bring people on staff with an expectation of success. I find it hard to even stand back and wait to see what happens. My attitude is more like, "I know the highest probability is that you are going to suck, or if you don't suck NOW, you'll suck shortly down the road. Prove me wrong…!"

I hate having that attitude. I hate expecting the worst from people. Negative thinker that I have always been, I have up til now had a way of expecting good from people. Expecting honesty, respect, empathy and a knowledge of some kind of decent work ethic. But somewhere along the line, the things I just took for granted from people have become almost extinct. These qualities are not only not part of prospective employees personalities; the words are hardly in their vocabularies (and they would not be able to spell them if they were…but that's a rant for a different day.)

Recently, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my work. I realize that I have been working myself to death just keeping the doors of the café open. I'm wearing every hat, doing every job, nose to the grindstone, hardly looking up to even see or recognize the faces of the people who inhabit my world. The customers. The staff. I don't know their stories, and I can't care about them. I have too much on my plate to care about the people. And there is something drastically, tragically wrong with that picture.

I feel like, within the next, say, six months to a year, I'm going to have to make a choice. Because just opening the doors and serving food is not what I want my business to be about. I have to be able to disentangle myself from the eternal knot of bullshit that has ensnared me since I took over the café. It seems like it's been drawing me in deeper and deeper, binding me tighter and tighter, until I can't pull far enough away from it to see the Big Picture. To BE the moral business owner I want to be. To care about my staff, the customers, ALL the people I come in contact with every day. And act accordingly.

What I have to figure out is, the way people are these days, CAN I care about them? Because part of the problem is that I have a really hard time caring about people who can't or won't reciprocate in any way. Have people become so self-centered, greedy and rude that I just can't find a way to care? It's not that I expect kudos or gratitude or…really, anything positive when I go out of my way to be kind or fair or respectful of people. I just don't expect to be treated like crap…which, unfortunately, is what happens most of the time these days. It's my misfortune that I tend to treat people as they treat me. Altruistic I am not, apparently.

So what I know is that I don't like this person I have turned into since I bought the restaurant. What I have to figure out is if I can change that, or if I just have to…bail.