Hm. I think I am in the mood to complain. I think I will indulge in that a bit today. Sorry in advance, just feel like venting a bit.
So, my husband has a new job which unfortunately he absolutely loathes. There was no real way to know in advance that his boss would be gratuitously horrible and nasty, and constantly switch unpredictably between downright rude and disrespectful to completely nice with no warning. He is having daily nightmares, is exceptionally depressed and feels trapped. Not only that, but he is constantly concerned about being randomly fired, although I doubt it would be that easy, given that he works for a large corporation and would really need to mess up big time to be fired. More the stress of it is what is concerning - he is just miserable! Poor guy. And more frustrating for him - he still does not earn quite enough for us to break even financially, and although I can do more and more, I do not yet make a good enough income to even us out, partially because I can't even find a regular, consistent job - and I have been looking for about 8 months.
Unsurprisingly, there is a trickle down effect here as well. DH is not being nasty or rude to me at all, of course, but he does spend pretty much every waking moment complaining about how awful things are, and truth be told, it can get a girl down. Of course, I'd feel bad complaining to him about how it is getting
me down, so I am doing it here
![sly wink :wink:](./images/smilies/slywink.gif)
And I'd feel bad going on and on to him about how guilty I feel about the part I (being sick for so long) played in our financial situation, because honestly, I
know that is really self-absorbed. But I often do feel that guilt.
Honestly, I am doing pretty well lately, but there are still about 100 things about my life and being sick that I have not even gotten around to dealing with emotionally, and any extra effort exerted to keep my head above the dark clouds takes its toll, so the result seems to be that I am getting more and more tired.
And now we have Thanksgiving coming up, and let me tell you between my DH, my SIL, and 2 BIL's and my parents, there is a general tug of war between a small army of control freaks. One person has and idea or a solution - one tor two others figure out a way to sabotage it and do THEIR, different idea. And repeat, repeat, repeat until everyone is fighting all the time.
Let me tell you, I am tired already. There are going to be 5 different people cooking 5 different Thanksgiving dinners in the same small kitchen at this point, and if that stays the case, there is no way it will be a relaxing day. My main focus was making sure that my meal cannot be interfered with by the many others, but that
had involved baking sweet potatoes and squashes, which now is out of the question, because the Turkey my SIL was going to buy is now two turkeys that she is going to make in the oven (small oven) and I am paranoid enough about any animal protein coming into my system to not want to bake my main meal stuffed in the same small oven at the same time, especially knowing how little she understands or supports about what I am doing and why. So I guess that is my control-freak-ness coming out.
And my parents are coming to town, which is great. Except, they really want to share a Thanksgiving meal with me - of the same foods. This is very nice of them, and important to them, but unfortunately, the way I have gotten around the conflict of family meals out here with the in-laws, is to eat what I eat, and they eat what they eat and that is that. Because my in-laws do not want to eat what I eat, and are not really concerned about whether I get to have what everyone else is having or not.
(
Uber-whine ---->
It can be a bummer to always be the one eating the kind of gross nuked leftovers while everyone else is raving over a fresh-cooked, delicious holiday meal that I can't eat, but I'd rather not fight about it because it gets nowhere and in the end, everyone just takes over the kitchen so there is no chance of me being able to make my food fresh anyway, an then I have not only engaged in a tense conflict, but I STILL eat nuked leftovers. Or nothing, as happened once.)
So I don't know. My husband spent most of yesterday afternoon fighting on the phone with his sister about the turkeys, because apparently we are no longer having a vegan Thanksgiving. Part of me is like, "Whatever, let's just let everyone do what they want, if they are going to be so adamant about it, it isn't worth it." I mean, it's one meal, right? Yes, it is a Holiday, but still, when it comes down to it, the pressure of "Holiday" on the one meal is what usually ruins it for so many people, right? The Holiday is about Giving Thanks, not Gluttony and Winning Power Struggles, right?
Also getting me pretty down today - An uncle of mine just finished his treatment for lung, colon and prostate cancer, and I am pretty worried about him, knowing what I know about cancer treatment, diet's effect on cancer and everything, and then - one of my aunts told us yesterday that it looks like she has a kind of bone or blood cancer.
So I am just filled with Holiday Cheer at the moment.
Sorry about the vent. In truth not everything is bad at all, I promise! There are many many great things happening too.
For Example - reading over what I just wrote, I can see why I start to overeat around Holidays - I am always feeling the fear of not being able to have food in a family situation, because of the way things unfold. And also partially because of the strong emphasis on the food that almost every Holiday is centered around.
Patty said in another thread that she reminds herself "This is not my last meal" when she is out eating with others and cannot have exactly what she wanted to eat. I think I will make that my mantra.
So I am eating gross leftovers:
It Is Not My Last Meal.So there is no food but romaine lettuce and red onion for me to eat:
It Is Not My Last MealEveryone is raving about how good the (insert food I cannot or will not eat here) is:
It Is Not My Last Meal
plus I Like My Food Better at This PointI can make this about something else. I can rewrite the story of Holidays. I just need to spend some time contemplating what the new story could be.