Posted by Temmie on July 18, 2003, at 12:07:08
Hello Everyone .... Just wanted to chat a bit, and hope my issues/concerns will be of interest to someone. I am ... feeling so trapped ... and so stuck. I just returned "home" from a week with my boyfriend in NY. But that's leaving out so much background history .... Growing up in a nightmare of abuse and trauma, I left home as soon as I was able, worked a variety of jobs from coast-to-coast, got pregnant at 31, and returned to my "home" when my infant son was -- well, an infant. After working a number of years in corporate America, attempting to climb my way up the career ladder, moving in with my parents made returning to school a possibility, and -- somehow -- clawing hand-over-fist, I graduated from college at age 45 with an education degree. My son is now 18 and leaving home for school in California next month. We are still in my parent's house, and my father -- as you may have read -- is in the full-blown stages of some kind of manic malaise. "Grandpa" is irritable and irrational. It's difficult to be around him. I've tried to protect my son all these years, while saving for a house and planning for a move -- but when the time came to do so, my son didn't want to leave .... Then, after 17-odd years of celibacy and struggle, I hooked up with this man I'd known 20 years previously in NY.
I always loved Paul. There was always a presence about him. You know? That sense of looking into someone's eyes, and actually finding someone there? It was a beyond-the-surface level friendship, and when we got together last November, things ignited ... fast.
But Paul has issues I never knew about. He's unemployed and homeless. He's been crashing here and there, or camping in the woods. The woman he was with before me (which I knew nothing about) filed assault and battery charges against him after one of our burning-up-the-wires-late-night chats .... I didn't know about Jane, and don't know whether she attacked him, as Paul says, or whether he hurt her when he subdued her (as she says). This all ties in to losing his job, due to the charges ... and good grief. The story goes on and on. Now he's got a court case pending. In fact, he's got two. There's another woman, with another story .... It's hard to know what to believe! He's such a sweet guy, but has certainly gotten mixed up with some pretty questionable ladies .... At least it seems so, to me. He's also got PTSD pretty bad from his Vietnam experience, and he's a pot head. Plus he drinks. I mean, driving down the road before breakfast, he'll have a joint in one hand, and a beer in another. Sometimes he's pretty irritable.
So we spent this week together, which I thought would be a week of sort of enjoying one another but wrapping things up -- and now that I'm "home" again in the suffocating confines of hiding from my crazy father (either in the basement, or my bedroom), I miss Paul. I miss the way he knows me, and accepts me.
And I'm really really really stuck and troubled about my job and financial life. I have only a 50-percent contract with the local school district. As they hired me late in the year last fall, my prorated salary was a whopping $14,200 for the year. Can you imagine? So all those savings ... are gone ... and rendezvous with Paul have put me in debt, and now my son's going to college -- on a nearly free-ride, thank God, but I've still gotta come up with $300-500 a month for my end of the deal ... for tuition, insurance, etc. And I'm in grad school, too -- which ate up the salary I was using to keep me afloat through the summer, and for which I'll likely have to take out loans for in the fall.
Jeesh! What is the MATTER with me? Why -- despite years of introspection, and active seeking/searching to lift up and become more whole -- why do I feel this compulsion to be with a man who isn't totally "good" for me, and why do I struggle so finding my place in the world in terms of work, a home of my own, etc., and financial security?
I'm an attractive woman, not that I care, but a former model who still turns heads at fifty -- the blessings of beauty alone are useful in opening doors, if nothing else -- but are my feelings of worth -- or lack of worth -- the cause of my feeling so many doors shut in my face?
I don't know what to do. I am bellyaching here, for sure, but -- seemingly, still so out of touch with reality, and the momentum I need to lift up and make something happen.
Can any of you relate to this? I'd sure appreciate talking with someone.
Lonely,
Temmie
poster:Temmie
thread:243173
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030713/msgs/243173.html