Purging Ugly

Hey there,

How nice to have Sunshine in the house today, in case it rains. I'm so envious of your relationship with S! I hope the two of you are having a memorable day and that last night wasn't as bad as you may have anticipated. I also hope that M is doing well this morning, another weight lifted off her shoulders. Looking eagerly forward to hearing more (no pressure!)

Speaking of your Sunshine, I wonder if my relationship with G would be closer if her mother were my sister, instead of her father being my brother. CC can be very protective, if not outwardly, definitely passively-aggressively. (wow, can you put four adverbs in a row like that?!) Comments like, "Oh, you're going to Cantina for lunch? We don't go there anymore, do we G? Remember what happened on Daddy's birthday?" So then I appear to be (feel like) some sort of idiot for still eating there. Like everything about her, I wish I could explain what I mean, but I can't. Suffice to say, I doubt I will ever have the same kind of Sunshine here, as much as G and I have a good time together. I guess I always wanted to be the cool aunt, (I'm the only aunt) but don't feel I've begun to achieve that yet. Maybe I thought it would bring me closer to my brother (another J!! Let's call him B, it actually relates to an old nickname), who knows.

OK, enough of that. I sat down initially for some therapy and was so delighted to receive even your short post. How thoughtful of you. This blog has become a daily treat for me, to read and have you so close by all the time, and to be able to write whenever I want to. I check in first thing every morning and last thing each night; what an awesome idea this was!! Funny, too, I feel like I talk about you all the time now with K and S. The first time I mentioned you I had to tell K our whole story (as I had to tell you hers) since you haven't met, and suddenly you are a part of every other conversation I have. "Barb said" or "That was Barb's thought on it" or "Guess what Barb told me this morning?" At any rate, the girls call you, "Amanda's new BFF". Which makes me smile and feel so blessed that one of my oldest friends has become new!

So, this morning I grabbed my coffee and my phone (it's still ringing pretty constantly) and came in here to purge some ugliness. I know that what I'm about to write will constitute serious rambling, so I apologize in advance. And I know that you won't judge me for whatever I say here (although anyone else might) and I thank you in advance for that.

I woke up this morning to J kissing me goodbye and saying "You might want to give M (Chief's wife) a call today, or stop by." If I could tell you why that hit me like a slap in the face, I would. But I can't figure out why it set me off and subsequently sent me into a mini-rage against J before he left for work, but here is what I told him: "Did you think I was neglecting her? Because I have thought very carefully about this over the past few days and I decided not to call and visit on purpose. She doesn't like me - " (there is a long story here of a fall-out we had years ago) " - and if it were me, I don't think I would want to be surrounded by people I don't like. I feel like I've let her friends take care of her in the forefront and I have tried to be helpful in the background. Since this isn't really the time for us to have a formal reconciliation, I just thought that I'd keep my distance....blah blah blah." He told me "it's not about you..." at which point I interrupted with "I KNOW it's not about me" and then he said she asked him to say hello to me yesterday. And "Despite your relationship in the past, I think this is an appropriate time to reach out to her, because she's not going to call you, any more than she's going to call anyone else. If nothing more than because you're the Chief's wife, and so is she, and there's some connection there that could be helpful to her right now." Which, by the way, I totally thought about and wanted to do, but kept imagining if this were me, and CC kept coming to see me, (very appropriate, sister-in-laws) how I'd want to shoot her.

Barb, what if I don't want to be the Chief's wife? What if I wish I had made a life for myself and had a career and had to go to work and couldn't do all this right now? What if no one asked me on Monday night, when they elected J the Chief, "Is that ok with you, Mrs. R?" Mrs. Chief's Wife? And why am I feeling like this in the midst of someone else's horrible tragedy? Feeling resentful because there's a role I'm supposed to play now and I don't know fire department protocol and I don't know how not to f this up for J, or how not to engage him in a petty argument when he's already overloaded, how to make all the right calls and visits and be the right person at whatever given moment I'm supposed to be it... and how I don't want to do any of it???

I haven't talked to J since Saturday night, when that first call came in. He has talked to me, at me, at the kids, at his friends. He has dumped his emotions and replayed moments and remembered his friend, all very appropriate and necessary things for him to do. He hasn't done anything wrong; he's taking care of a massive operation here, which I think most people are either awed by or disgusted by, but either way, it's huge. A fire service funeral might as well be the funeral of a president for all the pomp and circumstance, and I'm not exaggerating. That, on top of taking on his new position, taking care of M and her girls, dealing with the press every day, he's simply not here.

Why does that piss me off? Why does that make me even the tiniest bit resentful all of a sudden? Because he comes in at night, sits at the computer and reads all the news stories for the day, has a beer, catches the 10:00 news and goes to bed; maybe he says hello to the boys, maybe he gives me a run-down of the day's events, maybe not. Or maybe, like last night, he sits up with T until after midnight but never once asked the boys how their day was.
Is that unreasonable? Is that selfish of me to think that even in the middle of all of this, he could take five minutes to acknowledge that the rest of the world has continued to move on? I feel totally abandoned here. I feel like I'm supposed to know what to do, but don't; I feel like I'm supposed to support him and understand all of this, but I can't. I feel selfish and insensitive but it's real and I hate myself for feeling it.

I called MC, our therapist, this morning and she'll see me at 5:00 today. I just told her I don't know how to support him and I need help figuring out what my place is in all of this. Why isn't it just like a normal death, like the death of a friend? Why do I have to lose my husband too? Why is this so much more important than Joe Blow off the street? (how's that for insensitivity??) I know the answer, I guess, it's the brotherhood. But I've never gotten the brotherhood and I'm really not getting it right now.

[big sigh] Done. That's all I needed to say. Not! I'm still edgy. I wish I could get in to see MC earlier today, not that she has all the magic answers, but still. I have to return so many more calls today and go see M and the girls; I thought I'd make cookies to bring over, so at least that's some comfort. (like on Grey's Anatomy when Izzy baked 300 muffins after Denny's death, baking is my therapy.) I'm not a minister type; I watch some of these other wives rise to this challenge, cooking and taking care of the family and balancing their own lives with this and I feel so inadequate; why can't I do that? Why can't I be the one at the front of the line, setting the example for everyone else: here's what you do in someone's time of need? I'm sure that would be the answer to "what am I supposed to do?" but I don't know how to do that. I feel paralyzed by it. I'm more than happy to let the others take over and I'm sure they're grateful not to have me hovering around uselessly.

I'm stopping now because I'm starting to be self-deprecating and that's not healthy either. I've got to go take a shower and get this day started, no matter how much I'd rather iron shirts and watch a.m. tv shows in my jams.
Thanks for listening, A