Normal

When there's still rubbish all over from the biggest flood in god knows how many years, you can't straighten your arm because of the injury, you can't open your mouth wide enough to fit in anything more than the width of a slice of bread and 10 out of 12 guppies die in your newly acquired fish tank, it's easy to think that your life is falling apart...

but no, it's all normal, so I'm told.

I don't know why the fish are dying. We've tried everything. The tank is clean, there are now live plants in it (as opposed to decorative plastic ones, not dead ones), we've cleaned the water, fed them, got new ones because maybe the first lot were contaminated from the flood and yet still they insist on carking within a few hours of being in their new home. The kids wanted a pet. Ex is allergic to fluffy things, fish seemed perfect. All my kids have learned so far is that fish hate to travel and show it by dying within a few days of arriving. It's like they have a conspiracy going. They don't all die at once. They each await their specified turn, then, when no-one's looking, they go the float! What the hell! They don't realise that we are trying to teach our kids responsibility by having them look after pets. No, these pets have different ideas of their own. They want to teach my kids about 'fishy heaven' and 'how to catch dead fish with just one hand and no net' and 'how to be brave when the pet you think you love has just carked it'. And I'm sure the fish conspirators have cottoned onto ex and are trying to develop his problem solving skills to a higher level because he just can't figure this one out! Good god!. WHAT'S GOING ON?

*

So anyway, things have levelled out a bit. The panic mentioned in the previous post is gone (it might be with the dead fish!) and I'm slowly coming down from the dentist trauma - very slowly and nurofen is still my best friend. Apparently it's normal not to be able to eat for a week after this kind of extraction. My girlfriend in Melbourne told me that she loses weight every time she has a wisdom tooth out. Sounds good to me. The diet you're on when you're not really on a diet! I could do to lose a few pounds.

My arm has improved too but is still bent. After a 3 hour wait at the hospital today, I got to see an orthopaedic specialist. He didn't really tell me anything I didn't know. he did confirm that getting full mobility back after an injury like this is rare. However, the bone is back in the right place - good they got that one right, I'm doing all the right things (as in using it like normal) and now have to work harder at stretching the broken bits (ligaments and muscles) which should be fully healed and pain free in about 2 more weeks. Way to go!

Sigh, life's just peachy!

Going through a rough patch...it will pass

Things have levelled out here, though it's not really amicable. Coolly civil is how I'd describe it. Few words are exchanged and at the moment I'm keeping out of his way and he's doing his best to keep me out of his way. He barely looks in my direction. His actions clearly tell me I was wrong and now I'm am living the consequences. Of course, I want to apologise 1000 times over, to heal the rift that has grown, but really he hasn't been here enough for me to even say that. The day it happened he was out til 8 or 9 pm and went straight to his room. Yesterday, he went out of town for the day and didn't get home until after dinner and went straight to his room. Then I went to mine and he came out to watch tv.

Tonight I need him to look after the kids and take them for dinner because I'm busy. He will meet me there because I'm guessing, he can't stand to be in the car with me. He would rather walk for 20 minutes to the place where he has to meet us, rather than have me come and pick him up. That's not a bad thing in itself, but his actions speak volumes about his feelings for me.

That said, I asked him to accompany me to the hospital on Monday and he said he would. I'm not reading anything into this though. His role is purely a functional one - he's the translator and token local husband so I get charged as a local, rather than as a foreigner. I just hope the cool atmosphere warms a little to make it more comfortable for both of us because I know he doesn't enjoy this either.

Last night I had a dream where he admitted that he was in a huge amount of debt to his sister. In real life, he isn't, but I woke up thinking it was true until reality came and hit me in the face. He's working, he seems to have an income at the moment. Yesterday he went out of town in his business clothes, presumably to meet a client. I hope he gets back on his feet soon.

*

Yesterday I did a bit of research on dislocated elbows. The prognosis for my type of injury isn't that great. I will need to work hard and it will probably be painful, if I'm to get full mobility back into my arm. Nice! (not).

*

To make my week even better, I braved the dentist this morning. I've had a painful jaw for a couple of days and thought it could be due to my teeth. 40 minutes in the dentist's chair and a cracking wisdom tooth extraction later, I'm sporting 4 stitches in my lower gum and can barely speak to save myself. I can't bring myself to eat either, so I'll survive on water and green tea today. He was a little rough with the pliers though. Trying to loosen the tooth, he kept saying it's OK, it's nearly out, all the while pushing on my cheek so hard with the pliers in order to get the right angle for the extraction, I thought he'd crack my jaw. But no, he did OK and now tomorrow I will probably be pain free.

So, I'm a bit of a mess at the moment, but I know this will pass. I have Nurofen ready for when the anaesthetic wears off and I'm sure I'll be able to speak to my class tonight - if not, I'll just mime a lot. It's amazing how quiet kids are when their teachers speak softly and use gestures instead of words.

Tomorrow, Saturday, the kids have school. It's a replacement day for a day off during Chinese New Year. Not really a bad thing, though it took me ages to come to terms with school on a Saturday. Something not quite right about it though this week it's not so bad because they had (another) public holiday on Tuesday.

So that's all for now. Time to find something else to drink and cool down before my student comes. He's the young one that doesn't speak, except that now he is speaking - slowly, but surely, he is imitating new words and can count to ten in Chinese. I asked his mum if I could do anything else for them because their house was washed out by the flood and she just said "just help him to speak". I hope I can.

I bit and now I'm paying for it.

Yesterday was not a good one for me. I spent the morning recovering from a mild cold and so wasn't feeling good anyway. My arm, now out of its cast, is now bent at a ??degree angle and looks hideous because the injured muscles have shortened in the healing process - as they do.

The afternoon came and I spent my time looking for someone who could possibly help my daughter with her Chinese homework. I sent out 5 messages to people who had previously offered to help should I need it and no-one had gotten back to me. I was getting stressed and when that happens, I start thinking about how, if we weren't here, if the kids were doing their schooling in Australia, I wouldn't need to search for such help and wouldn't be having this stress.

As it turned out, the mother of my daughter's friends came around and helped her, so that was good, but too late, I was already in a crabby mood. To top it off, I'd sent a sms off to ex to tell him of the evening plan and sent it to the wrong person. He ended up ringing me and I ended up sounding like a dill because he hadn't got the message I'd 'sent'.

Later when I went to pick him up, I got stuck behind every slow driver and the traffic jam in the main street made it very difficult to pick up ex from our agreed point. Thinking 'this is dangerous, I can't stand here' I did a block and ended up on the wrong side of the road. By this time, ex had come out of his office and was at the previous point and had to cross back over, through the mad traffic. First thing out of his mouth was "this is a very dangerous corner" - I should have said 'yes I know but I didn't have much choice' but instead I shut my mouth and fumed. He picked up on it and closed his eyes as if taking a nap. That tells me he can't stand to see me drive in this condition and pushes all my sensitive buttons and makes things a whole lot worse. We drove to my english class where he was supposed to drop me off and take the kids for dinner. When we stopped, I couldn't just get out of the car.... no, I had to open my big mouth. I told him to "look at me!" and then told him back "all corners are dangerous", referring to the mess of a town that is our main street. He replied that OK, he wouldn't ever say anything again and we left it at that, both of us fuming.

I could have kicked myself and of course, went into meltdown mode. I went to my English class and really, just got through it. By the time my friends and I met up after class to go for dinner I was feeling a little better and then of course a lot better after we ate and saw their beautiful new house which they will move into next month.

During dinner with my friends, I texted (is that a word?) ex an apology and told him I'd had a bad day. He replied that it was OK, that he'd taken xanax and 80% of 'it' was already gone. I was a little relieved but knew that the 20% residual anger would show up somewhere.

The spiral feelings kept tugging at me all night, wanting to pull me down into a pool of self pity and anger. I did not want to go. Scathing comments flew around in my brain, making ex out to be such a prick that by the time I was at home and in bed, all I could feel was hate and fear. So I guess it did end up pulling me down after all.

I always think "what if this is it, what if this is the last straw. What if he can't take anymore." And then of course the panic and fear set in. I blame myself, I should have just shut the fuck up, then I wouldn't be in this mess. I kept telling myself, it's going to be OK, this will pass, etc etc and actually did get some sleep that night.

This morning the atmosphere was still a little cool as we drove the kids to school. After they'd gonehe said I could drop him at the market where he would get some things and that he wouldn't be home for dinner and that he'd find his own way home tonight. That kind of pushing away sent me into another tailspin. I grudgingly went home, took some xanax and slept the morning away.

Recovery from what seems like such a minor thing will take a little while. It's a far cry from the good weekend we had at his family's home in Kluang where we belatedly visited for Chinese New Year. We even managed to share a bed and were grown up enough not to find it awkward. He took us shopping and bought his mum, our daughter and me a present for stupid Valentine's day. My gift was from my son. Sweet I guess, but we've never celebrated it before and I find V-day awkward and artificial.

Anyway, time to make dinner and try to carry on as if nothing has happened at all.

Uggh!

Bored, bored, bored

I'm out of my mind, bored shitless. Since my little mishap just over two weeks ago, I haven't been able to take myself out because I can't drive. Ex has been quite good, taking us out for dinner when we request it because I can't cook either - tried it, it hurts and one handed just doesn't produce the results I need - and it hurts. So, he takes us for drives, for dinner, for shopping if we need too, but it's not the same as being independent and I really don't like being dependent on him. I'd rather sit home and watch bad tv than ask him to do something for me -not that he wouldn't, but then doing things together always seems to create the opportunity for him to 'lecture' me on some point or other - these days, even though he says he doesn't want to, it's about how I'm not being proactive enough with organising our meals with my mother in law - even though we're happy with the arrangement we have, he seems to think there's something I'm not doing and I don't know what it is.

Uggh I'm so tired. So all I want to do is browse, sit, eat and sleep. Not good for my health or my mind. Maybe I'll feel better on Tuesday when i can take this cast thingy off. It's getting really tedious.

Maybe the penny is finally dropping for me

I've been mulling over ex's behaviour recently because something's not quite right about it. And not just his behaviour with me, but also towards other people. They don't see it of course, because they don't hear the denigrating comments, the impatience in his voice, the under-his-breath mumblings. I must point out that he doesn't do this all the time, but enough for me to notice.

When you meet ex for the first time, he is pleasant. He's nice, generous and can play along with the silly stuff - sometimes. With the kids he's cheery and enthusiastic (now as opposed to being almost non-existent before), always putting out new ideas about what we can do at this time or that. He's polite and aware and will help when needed. He's careful about imposing on people, about doing things the right way. He doesn't like to bother people and he doesn't like US to bother people either.

These days he's concentrating on being able to 'let things go' - as in not getting stressed when other people do things that are not to his liking, for whatever reason. He finds it hard to tolerate inefficiency and clumsiness or things that he thinks should be preventable (why make things harder for yourself than they should be). Being with me has made his impatience with these traits a lot worse.

But in trying to let go of the stress that's generated within himself, he comments, mumbles and most annoyingly hums inane tunes to fill his head with noise so that he doesn't think about what's going on around him. These are the behaviours that I'm noticing more and more now and the ones that trouble me.

With the website that he did for the flood, he was often annoyed about people asking for road closure advice when he'd mentioned umpteen times that they should look at the government website or ring the police stations. I guess it did get tedious, but that's the nature of people - they want the shortest way to get the information they need. When I mentioned to him about the nice thing a friend had said about him on the web site he dissed it and said "ahh, that guy's into all that sort of thing". I couldn't ask him to clarify without seeming sarcastic - "what, you mean appreciating other people's hard work". I mean i get it that he didn't do the website for solely for personal gain, he did it because he could and knew it would help. But if someone chooses to compliment your efforts, take it gracefully. If I was that guy, I'd be offended.

What I'm trying to say is that ex is never what he appears to be. That's showing through more now than ever before. It used to really (understandably) upset me - I can't count the times in our relationship where I thought we were doing really well and he'd say "well I've been really angry/upset with us for the past two weeks" - and it would surprise me each and every time. I had no idea and could never figure it out because it never showed up in his behaviour.

Now I know better. Now, I can see subtle (and not so subtle) cues of stress that tell me that all is not right with him. And I have no delusions about how he feels about me anymore. Unless I'm with the kids or he needs my help or I need his, I'm pretty much non-existent to him. He proved that with his behaviour in the last post. I wonder if his friends notice it. He does have friends, just not anyone super close as far as I know.

His exercise in 'letting go' looks a bit futile to me - he tells himself to but then it's seems like such an effort to do it. It's like he's not doing it with a good heart - there's resistance there and it's not helping him at all. I know from what I've been through that it's only when you truly surrender your mind and heart to what is, that genuine change will take place.

I've been writing this post for the past two days and in that time, a lot of the behaviours that really irk me have taken a back seat and a gentler, more compassionate ex has emerged. Strange. He's asked about my arm, whether it hurts and asked if the cast gets heavy and commented (without a hint of sarcasm) "I'm sure you didn't want this..." - no I didn't I replied, but left it at that. He's also been talking to me like I'm an adult and not a child, which I've appreciated. But I'm careful and reserved with him - I don't trust him to keep treating me well and I'm not buying into it.

Previously, when it's been like this, I've let my guard down and thought "oh, he's so good, it must have been me" but when I think about it like this, I think 'dysfunction' on his part and I remember that he's responsible for this mess too. Incredulous as it might seem to anyone reading this, sometimes I still forget, especially when he sounds so rational. So perhaps after all this time, the murky waters of this 'relationship' are starting to clear.

Oh f@&*, I'm a mess

Ican't even begin to sort the huge tangle of thoughts that began to invade my mind last night, after dinner. Truly, it's like one of those storm surges - little niggly bits here and there, a few thoughtless comments, a look, a gesture and then WHOOSH - all those things band together and come crashing down into my mind.Then it becomes, should I say something, why did he look at me that way, who would say something like that, he never makes sense, he's such a hypocrite. And I feel so bad feeling this way about him because now he's a bit of a local hero, as you can see from Segamat.com, and I quote from a friend of his:

"YEE JIN did a fantastic job but he is on his own. Solo. Long Ranger. He asked me to be his Tonto during the flood crisis along with my new buddy Dusty. Personally - I had great fun helping out. After some thoughts - Segamat needs to be rebuilt. The economic losses are terrible. The only thing I can think of is to use Segamat.Com as a platform to encourage more tourists, more investors to bring in the $$$. It's a beautiful place, Segamat - this natural disaster has taught us not to mess with nature. We need to co-exist with nature." ~ MK

I saw this and felt like writing that cliche that says "behind every good man..." because they don't see (and of course they can't) what he's like to live with. I don't know if it's me being over-sensitive or him just being really annoying, but the past few days have been tough with him. He's constantly locking his bedroom door behind him when he goes in there (to keep us out???), his comments are continuously peppered with referrals to having to cater for "the Lowest Common Denominator" and having to be patient because "people are who they are". (I can't help but take this personally because when we used to talk about our problems, he would refer to me as our "LCD".) I keep hearing "see, we can do better", "there's always a better way" and it clouds my reality so I end up missing it when he does say something good, like aren't we lucky that mummy makes us such a nice dinner" and "you have changed a lot".

Talking with him is hard because we end up talking about how we're talking, or how I don't give proper context, or, or, or so many other trivial things that ultimately end up trashing whatever good intentions I had of talking to him. What I would give to have a decent conversation with someone that I really connect with.

Our reunion dinner, which we ended up going out for at an open air food court, was REALLY nice. We'd changed our plans and made it so that everybody would come back to our house, which meant, after having 4 extra kids to stay, I had to clean up the house - one handed, albeit with a little help from the kids. We did it and we did a great job. The house looked clean, we'd decorated a bit more and overall did what ex wanted to. We were late thanks to ex who decided that in the late afternoon, he wanted to wire up some outside lanterns, which proved more challenging than he expected.

On the way home from dinner, after hearing more comments about how it's always OK to follow the advice of someone else, I asked him whether we could drop off some things that belonged to the little girls who'd stayed with us. He said no, it wasn't ok, because it was a time to be spent with family, but added that if I chose to ask my sis in law to take me, that would be my business. I'd actually asked her if she could during dinner and she'd agreed but when I told her that ex wasn't happy about it, she offered to deliver it for me on their way home - she's married to his brother so she understands my situation. The thing that pissed me the most though was that after we got home, he went straight to his computer and stayed there! After telling me that I should be spending time with family AND THEY'RE NOT EVEN MY OWN FAMILY! Hence the hypocrite thoughts mentioned above.

And i was (unreasonably) mad at him also for not talking to me at all after everyone had left and the kids were in bed. He went to his room, locked the door and that was that. Day done. Not a thankyou for playing host while his family were here and he was in his room, not a comment or a bid goodnight. Nothing. Oh how I crave to sit with someone, drink tea and mull the day over, with someone who's on the same page as me.

So even though I know this will pass, what with the floods, and my damn useless arm and everything else, you can well imagine how much I hate living here this week.

goodnight.

Ps And I miss driving, oh how I miss driving.

Floods and Cyclones

Hang in there, people of Queensland, the rest of Australia is thinking of you.

Meanwhile, here's the mess that is my children's school.

Li Chi School Blog

Mr S, after all this, all this and more, I'm really not sold on the idea that global warming is a myth anymore. We must be doing something wrong... we humans that is.

Too sad to write more. maybe tomorrow.