Gotta be a better way!

There's gotta be a better way to live this life! So much makes me so unhappy these days - especially work. The only thing that keeps me at all stable, that keeps me from running far and fast, are my kids. It's not even that I want to run - I'd rather just hibernate at home and never leave. It's all so darn complicated.

Oh, and I just heard that rather than hiring a new IT person here we will be going with a service that will do everything remotely: scanning our individual drives, tracking usage, updating viruses, checking trouble, etc. So I guess that will also eliminate my only releases of blogging, or e-mailing to a friend, or vegging on useless celebrity news or fashion faux pas. It was bound to happen.

Our head honcho is such a control freak. I think I kind of hate her. I feel like she is at the root of all the problems I have at work right now. Not that I'm not also at the root, but she put me there. It's an unhappy place. You can't imagine how much I wish I could get back to the place inside myself that allows me to be happy and fulfilled at work. Those days are so vivid in my memory that thinking about them actually conjures up the feelings of joy I had in going to work each day back then. But the reality is inaccessible. It seems irretrievable.

Today I felt hope and like I would somehow make mad progress, but then FM came in with his snarky attitude and his snarky way of reminding me of policies in his "duh - you oughta know that" way. Policies that were put in place this summer while I was on leave that basically stripped me (and anyone else at my level) of any authority I ever had which had been earned through demonstration of responsibility and trustworthiness over many years. But those damn "internal controls" which were instituted by our overbearing and over controlling head honcho make that all moot. Do they not realize the hit that takes on the morale and motivation of employees. That used to mean something, to be entrusted as a signatory for basic fiscal procedures. Small but meaningful. They are so over controlling. I really really need to get out of here.

You know - you go into a job and those controls already exist and that's fine. But when you have certain authority and then it's taken away for no other reason than someone needs to have sole control over everything, that's demeaning.

Yesterday I heard that I didn't get the other job that I applied for. It's like that last glimmer of hope just burned out. It hit me harder than I thought it would.

H keeps talking about how we're moving in a couple of years - probably out of state. Wherever HE needs to go for his doctoral studies or his work. He always says "well you can get a better job in 'city x' ". I'm so sick of hearing that. It makes me feel horrible to know that our family has to be uprooted to do what HE wants. HE is the only person unhappy in our current location.

The girls have a great school, wonderful friends they've known since kindergarten, it's a great small city. The kids don't want to be uprooted. He doesn't understand because the only time he was ever uprooted was in or before second grade. He doesn't know how moving affects a kid once they have a life and friends established. 13 has a lot of friends and it would probably affect her self esteem to leave this circle of friends where she's kind of the group leader and have to start over in high school. 10 has one very very good friend without whom I think she would really have a major shift in happiness.

I moved at 10 and it was hard. I went to five different schools in five years from that point forward. It was not good. Kids need stability and I want to offer that to my children. I'm seriously thinking that when it comes time to move it could be the end of our marriage unless H is willing to consider locations other than far far away. Right now he's talking about Iowa, or out west, or out of the COUNTRY!

Our home is beautiful although it's in disarray from various unfinished projects. The girls and I love our home. He hates our house because it's in disarray from his various unfinished projects which he never should have fricking started if he couldn't finish them! If we could finish those - or if he'd never torn the place apart we'd be living in an attractive and comfortable environment. I understand that seeing unfinished projects is stressful and you feel like you have to apologize to guests for the appearance. SO FIX IT!! He hates it's location. He hates our neighbors. He hates living near people. HE IS THE ONE WHO INSISTED WE BUY THIS HOUSE!!!

He wants to live far away from people, in the woods or the mountains. Neither I nor the girls have any interest in that. Only he does. Would I love to get away to the country or the mountains sometimes?? Sure. But I like living near people. I like having neighbors whose kids sometimes make too much noise, I like hearing my neighbors laughing and socializing, I like being on the main trick or treat route, I like walking to the store or the park or the school. The girls do too.

Why does he have to dictate everything. I'm going to have to tell him and he's going to be bigger ass than he's already been. I mean at some point I have to be honest and say "Honey, all this talk about moving is stressful to me and the kids. All of this negativity is overwhelming to all of us and not healthy. Uprooting the kids would not be healthy for them - I want more than anything to give them stability - so can you just do your post graduate work closer to home?"

The most depressing thing in my life right now is all of his negativity. He complains about our town, our neighborhood, our neighbors, our house, the girls school, their friends, their friends parents, the way our kids behave, the way they don't behave, my family, his own family, his health, his professors, other drivers, clerks at stores, traffic, weather, work, customers, what he can't eat, what I cook, how I cook, how often I cook...or don't cook, the laundry, the cleaning, the church, politics, tv, everything. It's so overwhelming.

Then he wonders why I'm not in the mood for sex. Hmmmm....I wonder. How romantic is our life? Yet here I am trying to figure out how I can change in order to effect change in him. Like I'm the problem. And I'm teaching this to my daughters. How can they behave to lessen his anger? What can they do to avoid his wrath? What the hell am I doing???

Sometimes I'm sorry I ever encouraged him to go back to school. I thought he could finish his degree and teach, have a stable job and a steady income. No - he won't settle for work until he gets his PhD. In the mean time he blows off work now to concentrate on his studies then stresses over not being able to pay the bills. I know he wants to finish, but he has to do less school and more work. This too I will have to tell him.

Somebody's just got to be blunt with him. So he fucked up early in life and now he's struggling to finish school. He desperately wants out of his business because he's managed it poorly and owes a kajillion dollars in taxes. But damn it that's all the income he has. So he damn well better figure out a way to do both and concentrate on selling it when he's in better shape to do so.

I'm so frustrated. This is not the life I pictured for me. I long for the simple days of renting a cheap house and living a simple life.

This is a rant. Not what I intended to write.