Rust in Peace

Time heals. Sorrows lessen. Loss initiates memories and, for many of us, thankfulness.

This last month has been hard for us as a couple. Monday I found out that my cousin’s husband had passed away.

I am humbled.

Here I am with my husband intact, albeit infuriating to me, and my cousin sits alone.

Perspective.

I look around our weedy, hulk littered property and am irritated. But my husband is still here to possibly clean it up, so I have hope. Were he to die, as much as I am tempted some days, he couldn’t. I too would be alone.

The times I find myself longing for ‘alone time’ I need to remember this. It’s easy to take myself off somewhere, and then come home. Death, however, would change that forever. Death is the final aloneness.

I have friends who’ve become widows. Some are still single. Some have remarried. Some of those marriages are already over. Those friends are once again alone.

Focus.

I need to remember to be thankful. I need to focus on the positive. I need to choose to be happy, or at least choose not to be upset.

I am soley responsible for my own actions and reactions. Not everything in life is going to be good, easy, enjoyable or understandable.

Not everything is going to be fun.

Life can be hard at times, but the good thing is that it is life, not death.

As I mourn with my cousin and her family, I am reminded afresh of how blessed I am. I can hug my hubby when he comes home from work today. I can lay down beside him as we retire for the night.

And, Lord willing, wake up next to him tomorrow morning.

May his many ‘projects’ rust in peace. Today I choose not to complain.

Reality

The last two weeks have been hellacious in our household. I’m at my wits end trying to figure out what to do short of packing Kidlet and I up and moving out. I wouldn’t want our dogs to suffer.

The Hubster has been a holy terror. He admits that his ‘logic’ and thinking have been skewed of late, but it isn’t stopping his erratic and irrational behaviors. He won’t go to a counselor or his doctor. He won’t stop doing absolutely bizarre things.

I’m worn out.

I usually pay the bills. I’ve been doing so for the last twenty years. I had a lab billing for Steve that seemed odd. It looked like there was some double billing, so yesterday I asked him to call the lab and request a full billing statement from them including what was billed to our insurance and what they had already been paid. I had tried, but due to confidentiality issues, the lab said that they couldn’t discuss the issue with me.

When The Hubster did call, he just paid the extra amount that I was questioning “because the lady said we owed it”.

After that call concluded he decided to call his doctor’s office to request the total amount of his last visit. He then paid that ‘balance’ which both the insurance company and I had already paid. The money he put on his account was extra. They’ve now said that they could ‘hold’ it until another visit. Criminy.  

I discovered all of this while at the grocery store trying to use my cash card and having it declined. I texted him and found out his very expensive activities of the morning. Fortunately I had enough cash on me to pay for all the groceries. I would now have to transfer money from savings to checking to cover the rest of our household expenses until next payday. I was pissed.

After some furious texting back and forth (with me insisting that all I had requested was for him to do was call the lab for a full billing statement as they wouldn’t talk to me about his ‘private medical issues’ and he insisting that he had to pay the bills since I obviously wouldn’t) he barely managed to get himself to his carpool after work. I received a sheepish call from him a while later when he arrived at his park and ride lot to discover himself standing keyless next to his locked truck. His keys were sitting on top of his desk.

I always carry a spare on my key ring as this isn’t the first time that this has happened, though Steve won’t admit that he is forgetful.

“I’ve never forgotten my keys before!” says an indignant Hubby.

Ummm, I beg to differ, my dear.

“Well, I haven’t forgotten this week!” insists He.

Uh huh. Reality.

I often find myself telling Steve that just because he thinks something in his mind it doesn’t make it true or real.

When I arrived at the park and ride lot adjacent to a local church, I saw Steve’s truck, but no Steve.

I honked and waited, thinking he might be waiting inside the church.

No hubby.

I called his cell phone several times, once just before arriving and twice when there. No answer. I honked again.

He finally came running out of the woods that were next to the parking lot.

“What were you doing in there?” I asked incredulously.

He insisted he was closing up his laptop and didn’t think I’d get there so quickly.

Say what? I had initially said I’d be there in twenty minutes. It had actually been twenty-two minutes, which technically made me ‘late’.

As I slipped the truck key off my ring I had an image of a wood stump drum set flash through my mind. I wonder if he was off in the woods pretending to be Charlie Watts.

I refrained from asking.

And yes, I am still at home, he is still alive, and I hope today will be better, lol.

Brain Melt

Just when I think that Steve can’t do anything else to amaze or confound me, he does just that.

I do recognize that many Aspergians have a bit of OCD in their makeup. My spouse most certainly does. I am not sure to what degree it plays in his theory of mind or mind set-ness, but lately it’s been a dominate force.

*Sigh*

Friday it came to light that Steve is now trying to ‘fix’ an incident that happened seven years ago. And alter a perception of something else that happened three years ago. And solve a recent misunderstanding that is not fixable. All of which he refuses to leave alone.

He has spent the last ten days totally obsessed by these three things, making phone calls and trying to make changes that could possibly severely damage our family.

He won’t stop.

I’ve tried to reason with him. I’ve tried to get him to talk to someone, professional and non-involved, to put everything into perspective and accept the realities of all three situations.

He is stubbornly resisting. He refuses to consider anything other than his mindset. He is fixated on achieving an impossible conclusion.

Holy moly.

Marriage is supposed to be a partnership, I remind him. Not a war. Not a competition. We are to work together for the good of our family.

Uh huh.

When we first married, we agreed that we wouldn’t do anything individually that we couldn’t agree on together. He now says that he didn’t really agree.

Would he be happier alone, I ask.

He says he isn’t sure.

Oh boy.

Does he realize that he is fixated on subjects that are unchangeable? He refuses to recognize that. He is of the belief that his thought process can alter reality, that if he has something in his mind, then it must be true.

I found an extensive article on Aspergers and OCD.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/186/6/525.long

Now I think that my brain is melting.

It’s About Time

The summer is winding down. Autumn starts in two weeks. My hubby has now decided to start mowing our lawns on a regular basis, which is every three to five days he informed me.

Now that the grass hasn’t really been growing for almost a month.

During the summer months I was lucky if Steve got to it twice a month. Kidlet tried to mow for me, as I have severe allergies to cut grass. However, with his busy baseball and football schedules we were seldom home during the daylight hours conducive to mowing. Our neighbors tend to be unhappy when our mower starts up at 7:00 in the morning.

Understanding timing and situations is not Steve’s strong suit. His rigidity of mind seems to prevent him from grasping probable outcomes, natural consequence, or multiple possibilities.

I ran across a suitable explanation on Aspects of Aspergers blog.

For me, it’s more helpful when people are explaining something in retrospect, because then the thoughts are all arranged neatly in their brain, and they don’t go off at tangents. So, for instance, you can explain why you decided not to do something you were going to do – explain how you went through the various pros and cons in your mind, and the overall result you considered in making your decision.

http://aspectsofaspergers.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/flexibility-and-common-sense/

Steve loves to rehash past events. He wants to know each and every step I took to come to a decision. When I try to explain my reasoning for a future choice he tunes me out. He doesn’t want to listen.

Hmmmm.

I do know that he likes to do chores or activities at the exact moment he thinks of them. He insists, for instance, on house painting in the pouring down rain because ‘it needs to be done’. Never mind that a torrential downpour has washed most of the paint off.

He wants to read a book or article at 2:00 in the afternoon on a sunny day because he ‘thought of (blah blah blah)”. Never mind that he can’t mow the yard in the dark, that it would have been better to mow at 2:00 p.m. and read at 9:00 p.m.

*Sigh*

“Sweetie, dinner is in twenty minutes!” I call to Steve as he heads to the door.

“Okay, I just have to run out to the shop to check…”

The slamming door drowns out the rest.

Twenty minutes later Kidlet and I sit down to eat. We do try to wait five minutes for Hubby in order to give him a chance to eat with us. But keeping our ever growing fifteen year old away from his chow for any length of time is cruel and unusual punishment.

Exactly twenty minutes after we sat down, in walks The Hubster.

“Mmmm, something smells good,” says He. Then he looks around the table.

“What? Did you eat already?”

*Sigh*

Courtesy Rules

Unfortunately for me, not in our home.

We had just returned home from a lovely morning perusing the local big box hardware/lumber store. With my mental list of needed items, two of which I completely forgot about until pulling back into our driveway, we wandered the aisles looking at various sundries, sipping coffee and talking.  Since we push our cart side by side, which allows Steve to look straight forward and not at me, my husband had chatted with me vivaciously. 

Sometimes I just want to freeze time for a bit.

After turning off the truck engine, The Hubster climbed out and pulled a couple of small boxes of bolts out of the pickup bed while I grabbed two bags of miscellaneous doodads, a small shelf for my office, my purse and my coffee. I closely followed my spouse to our front door.

He punched in the combo for our door lock, swung the door wide open and entered our domicile. I was just stepping onto the stoop when the a fore mentioned spouse of mine then snagged the door with his heel and kicked it shut in my face!

I stood there a moment trying to determine if I had suddenly become invisible.

“Steve?” I called out. Through the side window next to our door I could see him standing right there in front of me, albeit on the other side of the now closed door, slipping off his shoes.

Juggling my coffee mug a bit, I tapped my toe against the door a couple of times.

I’d swear he looked straight at me through the same window through which I was staring at him. To my utter amazement I watched him reach out and turn the deadbolt lock with a solid snap.

“Sweetie, open the door!” I cried out.

And yes, I did find my vocal volume increasing as my shelf started to slip to the east while my foot now soundly kicked the door.

“STEVE! Open the frigging door!” 

I watched in total bewilderment as he turned and walked away.

Since my shelf was now down to my ankles, I let it slide onto the porch and set my bags down next to it so I could punch in the combination on our lock & open the door for myself.

“STEVE! What the heck?” I shouted as I retrieved my purchases and tromped in. My hubby isn't the only one in our household capable of rage.

The Hubster poked his head around the corner of the hallway.

“What?” says He. “Why did you want me to keep the door open? I thought the rule was Always Keep The Door Shut.” He then disappeared from sight.

All I could do is stand there with my mouth hanging open. Perhaps in a couple of days I can laugh.