Communication, Duh!

Yes, I have gotten in the habit of not communicating my needs and desires to others. It's been a lot of years, mostly brought on by waning hope that anyone will ever actually care enough to want to know or actually want to help fulfill them, actually. So I've ever so gradually, over the last three months, opened boxes and made attempts to move in a little more each week. Each step along the way I had to ask TA to follow through on the spatial sharing we discussed when I moved in. Even my bedroom was not cleared out until the very last weekend when no one was using the room for months. I think that was because his ex-wife had stuff I there and a combination of respect and the emotional loss.

Change is challenging at times.

He's also similar to me in accepting what is and procrastinating about doing things, even when they are things that need to be done for health and peace and happiness. He needs the extra $ to maintain this big house for the kids, I need to feel at home. We talked it over and he offered sharing the house, but the sharing has been slow in coming. So I finally stopped assuming the worst (see previous blogs) and being silent and we ad a good talk. At least it was good from my end, TA doesn't share much about his feelings or wants and needs. Yes, even less than I do. Acceptance and procrastination can be an uncomfortable, if ot down right destructive mix.

We talked about the sharing.

He said he understands my challenge due to the lack of privacy, admitting he would not want to have someone in his face seconds after waking. I do need to walk past him (and sometimes the kid when she's here) to get to my bathroom and because of how he has his chair facing, I look directly at him when I leave the bathroom. Uncomfortable, but the hemorrhoid issue made it all the more disturbing especially since I found him there Saturday morning before sunrise. The TV woke me.

He said he could tell I wasn't feeling well and assured me that he was not passive aggressively resisting sharing the space. I pointed out that each step along the way, my bedroom closet, a place for my recliner, the kitchen cabinets, each waited until I asked after weeks of wondering why the space was not cleared. I mean, my boxes sat in the kitchen into February before I had a couple of cabinets to put things in.

So we discussed privacy and my not feeling at home and how he said we'd split the house and I could set up this living room as I please. He mentioned all the picturss on the walls (there are about eight and none are my style, I mean they are way too grown up for me lol lam) and I had not thought of them, which shows just how much I accept and how I avoid asking for anything. He is sensitive and kind and started following through this weekend by hooking up his TV in the other living room, taking down the pictures in here, and I've hardly seen we talked. I don't sense tension or discomfort or dissatisfaction or frustration. Just giving me space, maybe realizing that he hasn't.

He still has his main chair, an ottoman, a table, two amps he recently obtained (moving his stuff into this living room was not giving me the space we agreed too, but the laps serve a needed purpose and until I find lamps I fall in love with, I like the light they provide), and his TV in this living room. Since my TV is not hooked up, I appreciate his generosity leaving that for now. Still, yesterday and today he's made a big transition to leaving me alone in this living room so it feels much more like my room. Now I just need to actually move in, something I've not done anywhere in years.

Buy a couch, table, lamps, pictures, even an elliptical machine. Anybody got a spare $10,000 laying around? Maybe I will even get to the point where I have a friend over. How many years? More than a decade. and then some. I have lived a very isolated life, actually since childhood. I always went to friend's houses to play. Old habits die hard.

Ok, so optimism and comfort return and maybe we will be friends, really looking out for each other, instead of just friendly roommates. After all, if I had a close enough friend, he or she would have helped me get a place I could call home a lot sooner than this, if only by looking me in the eye and asking me why I am settling for a bedroom in a house that has not one mark of me (in Eb's place for almost two years). Here, the question would have been "So when are you going to make this your home?

It's been a very long time since I made myself a home.

Outside of my head, that is.

Narf :)