December 27, 2012

• Post-Christmas Rambles

  I don't even know where to begin, the past 72 hours have flown by and yet still felt like an eternity. For the most part I think the holiday went well. Christmas Eve we woke up and drove to R's grandparent's house in NC. The drive wasn't too bad. R worked a Sunday double the night before so he slept the whole way while I drove. It rained some which was interesting because I discovered my windshield wipers were a little too old and worn out. We got to the house around lunch time. I sequestered myself into a corner to finish knitting hand warmers for R's dad as his present. Christmas Eve with R's paternal grandparents was lovely. His 2 uncles came as did his cousin. We ate dinner and watched movies and opened presents. I got R some matching cups for his Japanese cast iron tea pot. He really liked them. I was really excited to give them to him especially after he said in the car on the way down that as soon as we got home he wanted to find matching cups for it (my mom and stepdad gave him the tea pot last week when we went over for Christmas with my family). I gave his mom the scarf I made during Project: Drunk Knitting. She loved it. I got a few CDs and another volume of Judge Dredd comics (only a week and a half til the DVD comes out!!! ... No, I'm not excited about it at all)

  Christmas morning we woke up and got our stocking gifts as well as "Santa" gifts (R's family has really confusing gift traditions... mine were simple; open presents Christmas Eve, open stockings Christmas morning. They've got different gifts to give at different times like family exchange is the night before and then there are more gifts in the morning... etc. I was confused the whole time! Next year they are going to have to write me out a guide on their Christmas protocol). In the afternoon we went over to R's maternal grandmother's house (they all live in the same town, which is pretty cool I suppose). I had a hard time at first because there were about 40 people crammed into the little farmhouse including a whole passel of children (kids tend to make me nervous... you just never know what they are going to do next). I also have a problem with understanding what people are saying if there is more than one person talking at a time. If there is background noise (like a fan, TV, etc) chances are if you're talking to me I'm not going to understand a word you say. I might as well have been standing in the middle of Tokyo, I probably would have been able to understand them better than I can 2 people talking at the same time. It's really frustrating and is a root cause of a lot of my social anxiety. I spent about an hour in a back room or wandering the field because I just had a look of absolute misery and terror on my face that I couldn't hide and I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable and since most of them I had never met before, I wasn't missed much.
  I was also having a hard time that morning because of my family. My grandma and my mom both kept pestering me about whether or not R had proposed or if we were engaged or if he was getting a ring from his grandma blah blah blah. It made me really upset. First off, it's not like it's my decision on when and where it's going to happen, that's all on R so why does everyone keep pestering ME about it? I've also been feeling down and a bit jealous over the fact that everyone and their dog is engaged, planning weddings, or already married and I'm "just the girlfriend." I got to sit there and listen to R's cousin's plans about their wedding coming up in a few months and all their crap. I can't help but wish it was my turn, but in the end it doesn't really matter. It's just a ring. It's just a piece of paper. Fundamentally it won't change anything about my relationship I have now, but the title will just change. I guess recently with all the death and depression we've been going through the past 2 weeks I've felt more distant from R than I have in a long time. We don't have anything to talk about right now really. Most of the time we are just in our own little worlds trying to cope with the pain. Physical touch is one of my strongest love languages, but I can't tell you the last time I held hands with him, or even sat close enough to him to touch in some way. In my head I figured I wouldn't feel that way if he would hurry up and put a damn ring on my finger, but that doesn't make any sense. A fake diamond wouldn't make me feel more connected to my partner, that's just silly. I'm more or less over my negative feelings in that area. Sure, I still wish he would just hurry up and get it over with because at this point it's just a hassle to have to tell everyone to leave  me alone about it. I think from now on when someone starts going off on me about where my relationship should be at this point I'll just tell them to pester R about it because it's all up to him at this point. I don't know why everyone thinks I can do something to change that (we aren't that kind of couple, I'm not that kind of girlfriend...)

  Anyways... After dinner with everyone they played Dirty Santa. I don't particularly care for those types of games but this one was actually fun. I got a power drill set that I schemed to get and R got a crocheted afghan (after trying to talk me out of the drill set, which I basically had my heart set on at that point). We both got what we wanted in the end, he got his blanket and I got my drill set which I'm excited to bust out soon. I'm going to make a pallet table/bookshelf for the hedgehog's terrarium and build a few other shelves. I'll also be able to fix the drawers in our bathroom/kitchen (all the tracks for every drawer are broken and have been since we moved in) and hang up the huge antique mirror that has been sitting behind the couch for so long. I'm happiest when I have something to occupy my hands (if my hands are occupied, my brain is occupied). I was also gifted a toooooon of yarn by my mom and I've spent HOURS on ravelry trying to figure out what I want to knit next. I really want to get to the point where I can knit lace, or at least do more than just scarfs and washcloths. I have no doubt that if I can be patient enough that I can reach that level of proficiency. I don't like the learning process a lot, I want to do the hard stuff NOW. 

  After Dirty Santa we packed up the car and came home. I ended up driving the whole way again because I wasn't having trouble staying awake or anything and switching off seemed like it would just be more of a hassle. Yesterday I slept mostly, all the hustle and bustle finally caught up with me. And now life can finally go back to something resembling normalcy. I'm glad that Christmas really is just once a year. I'm going to need every second of the next 363 days to recover from this past one!

  Hope everyone else had a pleasant holiday

   

  • 1:38 pm
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