How Many?
I’m just seething man. I’m just really upset and I can’t get it out of my head. After writing this, it is time to be strict with my thoughts and let this shit go. Move on.
Thanks for reading <3
A Song For The Road:
Another one I started months ago, but this one I have edited and updated and changed a bit.
How many days can I come home to the two of you, sitting the couch, with all three ACs blasting and the window open? How many times can I ask politely, you say yes we’ll start checking the windows, and then you don’t and we do it all again tomorrow? How much money did I spend on electricity so the two of you could cool off the outdoors or take an hour long shower?
How many times have I brought up that the utility bill is almost $200 every month before you start paying your half? How many times did I ask for the log-in to the gas portal? You kept insisting it was int eh drawer, but I kept telling you, that it the water/power, I need the gas, it is different. You said you’d send it last time and you didn’t. You said you’d put it in the drawer and you didn’t.
How many times can I ask you to text us when you are having guest over? Especially a man neither of us like, in the middle of the night? How many times did you “forget” to tell us? How many mornings was I surprised to find him walking thru the living room, as I was sitting on the couch in no pants because I thought I could. How many times have I asked for just a singular emoji?? A silly inside joke to let us know you were having company in our shared home.
How many times did you say “Let’s go to the grocery store tomorrow?” and then didn’t get up until you had to get ready for work, or left the house without a word to do it alone?
How many times have I asked you to just let me know if you need to shower in the middle of the day? It’s totally fine. I don’t mind you taking the bathroom for an hour. I just want a chance to pee first. Telling us we have to go to the gym to pee because you don’t know how to share or communicate is wild fucking work bro. We literally just had this conversation with your dad and everything on Sunday, it is Tuesday at 11:30am, and you got up, immediately went into the bathroom, started the shower, and it is now noon, and I still hear the water. No text, nothing to indicate that you would be taking up the only bathroom for a while. I don’t mind that you take the bathroom, I mind that you keep agreeing to terms to make things better, then you don’t do the things you agreed to do, and then you act like I’m in the wrong for being upset. That is narcissism, babe.
How many times have I said, just send a quick text in the group chat? Why did I even make it if you guys are never going to use it? How many times have you two had issues with each other, but instead you both talk to me about it, because “You’re easier to talk to.” Convenient that I’m easier to talk to when you don’t want to talk to each other, but when you have a problem with me, you’re “too scared" of me to bring it up” so instead you just avoid me for months and make up shit about “tummy aches” so you can hide in your room.
How many times am I supposed to let you get away with that? How many times am I supposed to let it slide when you don’t so the thing you said you would? How many times am I supposed to be the one to force the conversation to happen? How many times can I apologize for losing my cool before you forgive me? How many times can I reply the situation over in my head, it still doesn’t add up to me. I still feel crazy. I still feel wrong. I still feel taken advantage of. I still feel like you need me to need you. The second I started doing it all on my own, with firm boundaries, was the second you stopped trying to be my friend.
How many times can I do this pattern with people before I learn to set the boundary from the start. I should never have taken on so much of the cleaning last summer. I just felt bad that I wasn’t working, so I tried to clean and cook and take care of the place to make up for it. But when you guys weren’t working, you never returned the favor. In fact, how many times did I pick up your wrappers from the living room, your crumbs from the counter and the couch, wash your coffee cups, throw away your molding food in the fridge, clean the catbox (even though neither cat is mine)…… And yet, I’m still the bad guy fo rgetting upset. I even think i’m the bad guy. It wasn’t an unreasonable feeling. The anger and disappointment and feeling abandoned when I needed help the most, that was all really fucking valid. I just shouldn’t have yelled about it, and I shouldn’t have tried to talk about it when I was drunk and I shouldn’t keep having these conversations within days of my period when I feel the most crazy, the most guilty, and I’m the most likely to roll over and take whatever because I think i deserve it, when I don’t. This is why I wanted to talk more often, so I wasn’t always at my worst for these talks, my least regulated, my most raw.
*12:06 - out of the bathroom. It’s a fucking record, less than 40min. Thank you!!!
I’m so tired of feeling bad for my reactions. I’ve apologized more times than I can count, but I don’t recall too many apologies for pushing too much, for not following thru (usually it’s “I don’t remember that conversation.”), and I am doing so good at regulating myself when I am upset. Compare me now to me at 16, I’m not even the same person, to me in college? She was a deeply hurt person. I am not. I am whole, and I know myself, and I know what I expect from the people who claim to love me. I know what I need to feel safe, healthy, and balanced and I will continue to ask for it from those around me. If they don’t want to, or can’t meet me there, that’s okay, but I’m not sticking around anymore to play mom for a bunch of adults.
Do what you say, or don’t say you will do it. Easy.
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