Sunday night we decide that we need to get out of town. We had been feeling a little cabin fever and needed a chance to reconnect with each other and with normal civilization… that, and we had a serious opportunity to get a $2000 trip to
Hubby usually gets 3-4 day weekends as he works 12-hour shifts, but it had been 3 weeks since we had one, and we had gone much longer without REALLY seeing each other. As this was the first 4-day weekend in forever, we booked the tickets Sunday night for the following evening flight out of Barrow. I packed our bags and straightened the house, canceled the play date and workout plans I had set up to break the monotony of agonizing over keeping myself and baby from insanity and waited… and waited… and waited.
Hubby was supposed to leave work at 6:30 pm, and the flight was scheduled to leave at 7:12. Yah, didn’t think that was going to work out from the beginning, but Hubby assured me, it had in the past because Barrow is “special.” Anyway, he said he had made arrangements to come home and help me get the bags to the airport and that I should wait for him vs. meet him there… I thought it was pushing it close as it was, and I REALLY wanted to get out of town, but I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt. 6:30 rolls around, then 6:40 and Still no Hubby. At 6:50, I get a call from Hubby saying he is on his way and I should call a cab.
A CAB!?! What the Hell!?! Was he freaking out of his mind!? I couldn’t believe that this was his arrangement. Anyway, the cab shows up to our house at 7 and I am certain that the plane is buttoned up and taxiing down the runway. Of course the cab driver knows where we are going, that there is only ONE flight out of here and that it leaves in 12 minutes and takes his sweet time getting there! Again… What the Hell!? Anyway, at 7:06 the Alaska Airlines personnel meets us at the front door of the airport and says “you must be the family we couldn’t wait on any longer. You’ll have to wait till tomorrow.”
I was pissed! I really wasn’t all that surprised, but kept biting my tongue and gritting my teeth as Hubby kept making all of these crazy ass statements about how accommodating they are here. Again… What the Hell!? I have been here since November and NEVER had anything outside our small group of friends come anywhere near accommodating. Maybe close to coherent, or even civil, but NEVER accommodating.
All I really wanted was to spend some quality time with Hubby, let him get some quality time with Baby and recharge my psychological battery. What I got was “You’ll have to wait till tomorrow.” I’ve been waiting till tomorrow, till next week, till next weekend for over a month! The last thing I wanted to do was wait. Then Hubby get’s this brilliant idea that he will take this opportunity to catch up on all of his paperwork at the station. What the Hell!?! Couldn’t he see that I was a mama on the edge? Couldn’t he see that I was desperate for a little attention and, God forbid, a break?
Apparently not! He dropped me off at home with 3 boxes of groceries he picked up while waiting at the air cargo, a whiny baby and the ½ of our luggage that didn’t get loaded on the flight I so frantically wanted to be on. Of course he kept the laptop (my only link to the real world) and away he went. I understand that he was late because of a serious call he had to take right before 6pm. I understand that paperwork on such calls has to be processed quickly so that it can go to the District Attorney and through the court systems. I understand that things don’t always work out… especially at the last second, and I definitely understand why he would want to get all his case paperwork done before leaving town. What I don’t understand is why I was so angry.
I think it was a bad combination of PMS, cabin fever, pent up frustration toward Hubby and exhaustion from being a stay-at-home mom who actually has to stay at home. At any rate, I tried my best to hold it together… AND FAILED. Hubby must have thought the place had been bombed when he got home. The T.V. was flickering some muted nonsense with subtitles, the luggage had been opened and its contents scattered, all the grocery packaging materials had been pulled out of their boxes and flung across the front room, the remote control was shattered in 6 different pieces on the floor against the wall and I was in a puddle of tears next to a sweaty baby in our bed. He may not have seen signs of needs unattended before, but he was NOT going to miss this one. I haven’t had a fit like that in a long time, and can only thank God that Kaia was in the other room or asleep for most of it. No doubt she had been feeling the tension though, and for that I am still beating myself up.
I was just so furious and frustrated and had been for some time. When Hubby rolled in at midnight, I just pretended to be asleep like nothing had happened. The next morning I looked like hell and couldn’t find the words to start a conversation without making things worse. I noticed that he had done some cleaning and taped the remote back together. We worked around each other trying to get our stuff together to leave. Finally he broke the silence when he delicately asked me what had happened. All I could say was “sorry about the remote.”
It took us 2 days into the trip to start a conversation about what was at the root of the problem, but I still don’t think I was really understood. Maybe I need to write it out to understand it myself… I don’t know. But this is not the end of the saga.
On the bright side, the trip was good for us, and I was able to take a mini vacation from my frustrations and the demands of being a cop’s wife and full-time mommy. At least now I think that we are in a better state of mind for discussing things, and I have learned a valuable lesson: I am NOT going to continue putting issues off until Hubby gets a weekend, because sometimes weekends are delayed and when needs back up, things don’t end well for the remote.
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1 comment:
I'm so sorry you had such a rough week. Sometimes life can be really hard. I hope this week is better!
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