This morning I'm thinking about how my group members perceive myself and my relationship with Wrecking Ball. There is only one other person in the group that has a significant other, and that's Polo. But he's a little more secretive about it. I don't mean that he denies having a girlfriend or something. I just mean that everyone knew I had a boyfriend by the second or third day and I'm rather public about our interactions, but Polo is a lot more private and I only learned he has a girlfriend a few days ago.
When I say I'm public about our interactions I don't mean that I broadcast every detail. I mean that when I'm writing him a letter I'll do it in the dining room instead of in my bedroom, and if I get a letter from him I announce it at dinner during our "Rose and Thorn" game, in which we share the best and worst moments of our days. A letter from Wrecking Ball is always the Rose of my day :)
The other members of the group tease me a little about him, but it's in a nice way. For example, sometimes when we Skype we have a mug of tea together using specific mugs I bought us for that purpose (you can laugh at that if you want, I know it sounds kind of corny). A few nights ago I was boiling water on the kettle and I went to get my mug from my bedroom (the safest place for it!) and when Dog saw that I was holding it he said, "aw, Horchata's got a Skype date!" and Fox chimed in with "that's so cuuuute!" Last week at dinner Roo was telling us about an elderly woman nearby who would love to have us over for a games night. She described her as happily married with no kids but several cats and very lonely, and said she would appreciate it if we went over once or twice. As the whole group knows I miss my cat dearly, they instantly jumped on that: "That's going to be Horchata in 40 years, she already has one cat and her true love!"
I like that they acknowledge his presence in my life. I don't think I could find the words to explain why, but something about the way they ask about how we met or ask how he's doing makes me feel really good. But sometimes they also make me feel silly. I do whatever I can to keep Wrecking Ball involved in my experience. Every Monday night we go to a local school for a meeting of CinéClub Chicoutimi to watch a French film. I picked up an extra brochure about the CinéClub last week and translated the summaries of the movies for him so he would know what I'm going to be watching and, if one of them interests him, potentially find a way to watch it himself so we could talk about it. But Fox came home while I was sitting at the table with a dictionary and the brochure, working on it, and she said, "God, I'm glad I don't have a boyfriend right now, look at what she's doing, that would drive me insane." I felt rather embarassed but also defensive. I don't know if anyone reading this knows what it's like to be in a long-distance relationship but it sucks. It's hard, and more than a little lonely. When you're not interacting with them you miss them but somehow, when you are interacting with them, you miss them a little more, because it's as though it highlights what you can't have. If I'm on the phone with him before bed and I'm falling asleep it really hurts because I think about how if I wasn't here, we wouldn't be on the phone, we could actually be in bed together. So when Fox implied that I was crazy to be working to keep Wrecking Ball close to me I really wanted to say something nasty to her, because she really doesn't understand this. Instead, I just smiled and kept working.
Sometimes when you live with people it's easier to just not say anything when they piss you off. But only sometimes.
The other thing about which I'm thinking this morning (yay for long entries!) is my own life goals. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about them lately and I feel as though it is in my best interests to postpone (not abandon!) my dream of nursing. I feel as though the shift work would really hinder my stability and as I'd like to have kids as soon as I can, I feel I should pursue something else now and then go into nursing a little later in life, when my kids have grown up.
Sharing that reminds me of a conversation I had this morning. Cuisiner and I were awake before anyone because I went to bed early and he woke himself up with his coughing (he came down with something that sounds brutal a few days ago... I kind of want to bleach the whole house and drown myself in Vitamin C to prevent catching it myself) and after making him take some echinacea tablets for his throat I went back to the writing I started Thursday morning. He asked what I was working on and I explained that I had started making a list of every career I could come up with that fit my personal criteria as a way of brainstorming my choices in the coming years. Of course I then had to let him know my priorities, but I started with "I'd like to have kids as soon as I-" and he interrupted me to say I'm insane for wanting kids because we've both been kids and we know they're "bratty little monsters". For the record, I think he's insane for never wanting kids, but I didn't want to start that debate. I told him I didn't share that opinion and that I am very eager to have children. While we were talking about this, he was getting ready to go to the store for some bread (as people have found the loophole: if they buy their own bread it's not against the rules, they just can't put it on the grocery list... I don't intend to buy bread myself though. If there's homemade bread in the house why would I spend my own money on the store-bought stuff?). I told him to put a scarf around his throat to prevent worsening his cough. He has a hood thing that could potentially cover most of his face but he moved towards the door without having done so. I scolded him, "cover your face, do you want to get sicker?" and he tightened the hood to cover himself properly, and left the house saying, "thanks, MOM!" Sitting alone in the dining room, I had to smile to myself. I know it will be several years yet before I can take care of my own kids, but in the mean time, I can force my maternal urges on the people around me. Haha. That was said as at least 75% of a joke.
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