Starting to crumble

I had a minor break down at work yesterday, not a good thing. I’m not going in tonight. I’m going to go see my doctor again in the morning. While I now acknowledge that some therapy may be helpful, I don’t think I need to be admitted to a clinic. My plan is to see if being away from work will make me “not crazy” and if it does, then I’ll just try to find another job. If it doesn’t, then I’ll go for the clinic approach and find out why, after all these years, the depression has become unmanageable.

I need to explain some things to make my last entry make sense. Rah-Rah and S-dawg have been having some difficulties since November. I haven’t mentioned them here because a) it was a private issue, b) there are people Rah-Rah, S-Dawg, and Critter work with that still read my diary, and c) while I was concerned for them the situation really didn’t affect my daily life. Anyway, the difficulties started with what I thought was an out of proportion reaction to a mistake S-Dawg made. I later found out that it was just the last in a series individually serious but not relationship ending things that taken together put the relationship in jeopardy. At any rate, the reason I mention it now is because the situation has become known at their store, and Critter has contibuted in a small way to the situation. I’m not casting blame here, just making an observation, and S-Dawg is an adult and perfectly capable of making his own decisions. I am confused though since I thought, since Critter and Rah-Rah were friends, that Critter was hoping the two of them could work this out and the things I’m hearing that Critter did seem out of character for her. Of course, I haven’t heard Critter’s side of things, and I’m probably not going to ask, since it really isn’t any of my business, but I am concerned for my friends, and it makes me wonder how I’m going to integrate this new situation into our relationships.

Another underlying thing that will clarify the prior entry is about eight weeks ago when Critter came for her first visit, we had a discussion about the end of our romantic relationship. I asked her what had happened, made sure she understood that when we talked about getting married and having kids I was dead serious and thought she was too, and how much it hurt when she left. She told me it was just her, she has a knack for messing up her good relationships, and I really didn’t do anything wrong. At that point I told her that if she ever did leave K’s father, I was open to a reconciliation if she wanted to give it another try. I told her that while there was no one I was currently interested in, I wasn’t going to wait on her. I also told her that we’d have to go very slow so I didn’t end up getting hurt like I did before, and that the ball was entirely in her court, I wasn’t going to mention this again or pursue her, it was all on her. And it has been. I mentioned this to Ember the day of the funeral when we went to lunch and that was the first time I told anyone about it. I have not done anything in the time since then but be Critter’s friend, but apparently she took the comment I made the wrong way and it’s become an issue for her.

What exactly did I say to cause so much wailing and gnashing of teeth? Well, this was the day after our friend died. I was over at Critter’s, it was Wednesday night, and after a long day during which we found out the arrangements for the viewing and funeral, Critter told me she was going to take a shower and asked if I could stay a bit longer and watch the kids and I said of course. B, her six-year-old, asked Critter if she could take a shower with her, and Critter said no. I chimed in with a quick, “then can I?” and made my best goofy “hey, laugh at me” face, and she did. She laughed (a small one), rolled her eyes, shook her head, and said “no.” That was it. I thought my mission, to get her mind off GR for a second or two, had been accomplished and made no more mention of it. And even if she had said yes, I wouldn’t have, and she should know that, and I’m sure all of you know it. I would have said and done the same thing if it had been Ember, or Rah-Rah, or almost any of my other female friends.

Of course I’m hurt and in turmoil. I don’t want Critter thinking I was trying to take advantage of her. I thought we knew each other well enough so that she wouldn’t think that. I can’t even call her to explain because that would probably make things worse. I had to explain in depth to Ember to make her understand, and she said Critter’s probably still trying to deal with our friend’s death (she did know her much better than I did) and that’s why she’s thinking what she’s thinking. Add to this GR’s death, the stress and unreasonable expectations at work, and the fact that I haven’t spent more than an hour at a time with Ember in six months and of course I’ve started to go ‘round the twist.

And I may be moving to Chattanooga. Yeah, all kinds of drama in ToyMan’s life right now.