Thinking of "K"

[Larry]

Was feeling odd yesterday. There were times I felt good, and well?.... times not so good.

Still struggling with the budget. I mean, it's a vast improvement just to be able to say I'm struggling with a budget, but I'm still fussing and worrying myself over it.
Kinda makes me gassy.

My few ventures outside ELL in the dawn of my adulthood were rewarded with confusion, anxiety, and frustration, so the acquisition of money management skills were thwarted by misery and cowardice  and replaced by daydreams of self-reliant solitude in the mountains of the South Cascades range.( one of my fav. DDs in my 20's)


I'm trying like hell not to beat myself stupid over it, but that in itself is challenging. It's maddeningly difficult  to break ingrained habits that started as misguided coping skills acquired beyond memory.

My wife does her best to sabotage my efforts. On top of having bi-polar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and some kind of anxiety disorder, she's most likely ADHD, and is also putting forth her very best effort into a shopping addiction.
Getting her into see a doctor is like pulling teeth. And getting her to see a psychologist? Ya... 12 years and counting.

I think most of you can imagine what a person like that'd do to a budget operating only marginally above the poverty line.
 I'm lucky if I have enough gas to get to work each day.
And that's sad because I make enough to not have to worry about things like that.


I know I grumble and groan like a butt-hurt ogre, but underneath the the mask of that snarling "border lion", lies the sweet girl I fell in love with. So I stay, I hope, and offer up my pleas of pain and mercy through my newly found pen, to whatever gods might be listening.

Anyway enough of my sniveling. My work partner, who is OCD and prone to anxiety fits, had a dentist appointment yesterday, and though it was only a cleaning, I had to be alert to any "adverse" reactions in her mood.

 The last time she went off the deep end I followed suit, except, unlike she who sucked it up after a couple of hours, I wallowed in a quagmire of  hate and depression for an entire week.(still a little peeved about that)

She was on and off cranky, which I noticed made me "on and off tense".
These new meds are really helping me deal with conflict and stress a little better.
Though, there were those moments when I thought the anxiety would get the better of me and send me spiraling face first into the festering cow pies of my mind.

She really is losing her sense of humor with me writing these blogs. I write them in transit to the our buildings and on breaks. Once or twice a night I have to hear " you're STILL on that damn thing?".  Whatever. Butt monkey.

At least tonight I get a break.
A couple of folks decided they were going to stay home and wait out the storm( yes! It is raining in August here!), so I get to take it easy while she's busting her hump on a "hard" route *mockingly triumphant smile*

I'll be hearing about it tomorrow for sure, but right now I'm content to be left alone with my  thoughts and musings.

My work partner and I have a strange relationship. I say it's "strange", but I've never had a "non-strange" relationship to compare it to, so I'm just guessing it's a little odd.
"K" 22 years old. I am 40 years old.
We look like we're father and daughter and we fight and play like we're husband and wife. Sounding a little peculiar yet?


We work for a company that contracts with "Big Brother" ( the Federal government) The bulk of people working here have to have a disability of some kind to be eligible for employment. Due to the physical nature of the various jobs there are a lot of folks with psych issues. Add a few folks with prior military service and you've got one hell of a circus. Most days this circus is a jovial gathering of eccentricities. On others its a tragic comedy played out by dueling monkeys.
Never a dull moment.


I got in on my adhd, though the other disorders would eventually rear their ugly heads and test the resolve and patience of the company and myself. My "school days" habit of being yanked by the ear into the principals office followed me into the workforce. Ya...I got skills. :)

Anyway, I met "K" when my truck broke down and needed a ride to work. I had just started and didn't really know anyone. And as a true MDr....didn't really want to know anyone.
She had overheard my predicament and offered to pick me up at the college she was attending which happened to be in my neighborhood.

"K" got in on the job because of her OCD and because she is easily intimidated around men.

She's  5' 1", attractive, fit and young.
So its only natural that she randomly offers a ride to a 6' 260lbs 40 year old hairy Sasquatch she doesn't know.
Made perfect sense in her (slightly less twisted than mine) young mind.
I thought "she's either really naive or she's got a pair of enormous grapes".
I see myself in the mirror everyday and "I" wouldn't give me a ride.

Turns out, there was some naïveté there, but mostly it was big grapes.

As we got to know each other a little better(she farted first), she would listen to me vent, front me small loans when wifey would go on one of her "Walmart" binges( I always blamed myself for these binges back then) and would eventually cut me a good deal on the beat up old Dodge I'm currently driving. 
I felt and still feel a humble gratitude, not only for the help she gave, but for never once pointing out the she was helping someone who should have been able to take care of himself.
Though, perfectly imperfect, deep  down in the core of her being she really has a genuine compassion for the human spirit.
She is a person I admire.

She tempers this kindness though, with red faced obstinacy, an alarming intolerance towards any display of weakness or self-pity, and an occasional bout of mean spirited orneriness.
Like I said.....she's perfectly imperfect.

But that's my work partner. And I love her for her compassion and her butt-headedness and all her flaws.

I don't know if it would be accurate to call her a "real" friend though. 
At work, we're closer than kin, but I've gracefully, and at times, un-gracefully, declined invitations to extend the relationship to the real world.
Her fiancé( a good guy btw) and she occasionally rope me into lunch before work and I have even taken them fishing a time or two, but the mere thought of having my vulnerabilities and eccentricities laid bare before their scrutiny in the real world usually sends me scurrying to ELL with an overwhelming sense urgency.
I know that probably doesn't make much sense.
We spend hours taunting each other with mockingly juvenile jests and insults  at work, but when the clock rings O' beer 30, something changes. I can't quite seem to understand what exactly is taking place in my mind.
I'd like to think there's more to it than just the urge to be alone and daydream of better lives never lived. 

Maybe it is though. Maybe it's a trick of the unconscious mind or an automated defense of fragile emotions. 

I had no reservations whatsoever in telling "K" about the possibility of my having multiple personalities ( she had fun with that one in spite of not really understanding), but the MDD  is another matter.
I've told no one even remotely close to me. It's a different part of me that is fiercely defended from prying eyes. Something too close to my being to share with even the comforting darkness of the outside world. It's a naked magic that withers before the gaze of another and reveals itself for what it really is.
I don't want to see it as it is. I've enough reality to deal in. I need this for mine.

Yet, there's a part of me, a faint voice, in the craggy recesses of my mind, that wants to be recognized, understood, and accepted and does not know how to begin.
  

She knows I'm not always present. She has fun with it. If I start to drift into ELL, it seems to her a personal invitation to honk the van horn.

If she knew how bad it made me feel or how it embarrasses me,
she'd  never deign to play that particular prank again.
But I'm patient with her, she is afterall, barely an adult and means no ill by it.

That, and watching her squarely bested by her own giggle fit is actually worth a little discomfort.

Anyway, I'm never quite sure where these blog entries will start or end. It seems to me to be ruled more by the tapping of my finger on the iPod glass than anything in particular going on in my head.
The only thing I'm sure of is that the writing of them commands the whole of my attention, and like a daydream, I can wander to wherever my heart commands.

Well, I'm here at my library where I usually post these things. Guess I should go and look like I'm working or something.