S: Rank or Tank

This past Sunday night was not such a good night in Sheila’s world. I messed up with my fella and made him feel less than loved. Which led to a rather lengthy discussion (instead of more enjoyable extracurricular activities) and no concrete resolution.

This meant going to sleep out of sorts, waking up out of sorts and spending the better part of the next day utterly out of sorts. We’re both just no good when “we” are no good.

It’s entirely possible that I’m not so skilled at this whole girlfriend thing. As much as I love spending time with Guy…and despite the fact that I do my best to see him during any spare minute I have (right down to driving by his office if I’m early for a meeting downtown)…I still find in necessary to do my own thing.

I have a lot on my plate and I’m having a tough time making Guy a schedule priority, even though he has quickly become one of the most important parts of my life. At this point, anything and everything I do would suck if I didn’t have him around.

So how did I manage to make him feel like I didn’t want to see him, despite the fact that ALL I wanted to do was see him? Well, for starters, I missed his insinuation that since he had his afternoon and evening free, he wanted to spend them with me. I’m dense. I’m a dude when it comes to catching hints. Which means, basically, I don't.

And, also, I was feeling overwhelmed with “to do” list items that had remained undone over the week. I saw an open date on the calendar and thought “Yay! I can get all these things done!” Instead of “Yay! I can spend the day doing what I really want to do, which is enjoying the amazingly wonderful company of my squeeze.” These were not huge things, and if we had a specific date arranged, I could have easily let them go.

My inherent and irrational need to cross things off my list had me busy with yard work all day while I thought about Guy the entire time and wished I were with him. Meanwhile, he felt like I had blown him off by A. not letting him come over and help me in my yard (I didn’t want to take advantage…it’s my yard, it’s my responsibility) and B. suggesting we don’t get together until much later than he was hoping.

I had no idea what he had in mind. He was trying to accommodate me and not be pushy, but that left me to dictate the terms of the day and hurt his feelings by choosing poorly. I'm a goal-oriented opportunist, so I jumped at the chance to do some list obliteration, without considering the consequences.

I’m busy. He’s busy. It’s tough to maintain a relationship with busy lives. We spend a lot of time just going to each others’ houses to sleep at night. We don’t get a lot of quantity time together. We don’t get to just hang out a lot. It’s great that we can manage to get any time together at all, but it would be nice if it involved more than work and sleep. (And, surprisingly, LOTS of extracurriculars. We always find time for that.).

Guy is struggling with how busy and independent I am. With my work life, my social life, my home life. I freelance, so I always have to be doing a lot of things to generate opportunities and make connections. I spend a lot of time working on projects that I can only hope turn into something valuable eventually. This can sometimes be hard to understand. I also have to constantly be making connections, which means going to a lot of social events to mingle and meet people. Sometimes it’s hard to explain that this work and not just play. And I own my home. My home with a GIANT yard. The maintenance of home and yard takes a lot of effort and is never done.

All of these things are important and keep me busy, but to me, Guy is far more important than they are. But I can’t just let everything go, can I? I need income. I need a maintained home. I need a life outside of my boyfriend. These are things I must do, even though they don’t rank above my hunk of love on the priority scale.

What do I do? How do I balance?

He really is very patient and understanding, but he also wants to feel like I need to spend as much time with him as he does with me. And the fact is that I do. He realizes I spend every spare moment I can with him. I go to his house when he has his son and can’t go out. I do my work there just so I can sit next to him. I stop by his office if I’m downtown during the day. It’s not like we go more than 36 hours at any given time without seeing each other. But something about my behavior has made him feel like I don’t make him a priority.

Perhaps it was an isolated incident. I mean, I really didn’t get that he wanted to spend the day with me. I thought he was just being gentlemanly, offering to help in my yard. I thought he had his own things to accomplish that day and I was giving him room. I thought he understood that getting together in the evening still constituted quantity date time to me.

Once again, we both made some assumptions and that of course caused miscommunication. What stinks is that we didn’t really come up with a great solution to the whole busy thing. It will get in the way again. The question is, can we sustain at this pace? When will we cry “uncle” and throw in the towel because something’s gotta give? When will this all be too much?

Or will something else give instead? How can we choose? Sometimes “happy” and “surviving” are mutually exclusive.

Fortunately, we are good at talking things through with each other. We don’t swallow these feelings and let them burn holes inside us. I just hope we can keep it up. There are days when I need him and there are days when I REALLY REALLY need him. And for independent me, that’s saying a lot. I want him to stick around, so I need show him (not just tell him) where he ranks on the priority scale.

Maybe someone has posted instructions for adding more hours to the day on the interwebs somewhere. That would solve everything.

Meanwhile...I need a nap.