I Really Do Not Like Tuesdays

Yesterday I said that I felt like something was going to be difficult for me last night. Well, it wasn’t something it was someone, someone who should know better by now, you’d think anyway. Erik was difficult for me last night. Or being married to Erik was difficult. Or being a good understanding, non-harping, let-him-be-as-indifferent-as-he-wants-to-be-I-love-him-for-who-he-is wife. That was difficult.
Yesterday morning. Right about the time I was merging onto the Beltway I realized that I’d forgotten my lunch for the next two days sitting next to the coffee machine in the living room. I’d set it down to rinse out my coffee mug at the bar and then Laine had started crying and I’d picked her up and started jumping around and dancing on my way out the door to make her laugh, and it just slipped my mind that my lunch was sitting there. One was leftover meatloaf and green beans and one was a big bowl of red beans and rice. I was excited about those meals, both taste so much better as leftover and I was eager to get to lunch the next two days, I was all about staying in the office and reading my new book during the lunch hour, I’d planned this out! But I forgot my lunch, so I was already mad at myself and then I called Erik. Starting at 7:00 and I kept calling him until he finally picked up at 8:30. When he was in his car, half way to work already. No he didn’t see the big bag of food in the living room, no he didn’t pick up his phone, yes he heard it ring but he didn’t look to see if it was me or not. This is one of those moments where I flip out and start harping on him about the fact that I very well could have been dying and I was holing on to my last breath to tell him goodbye, SERIOUSLY?! YOU WOULD HAVE MISSED MY DEATH?! And he said, “Okay. Well, I’ll be home late.” Like the fact that I’m upset means nothing, we’re just going to skip over that.
So the day goes on. I get in the car to go home. It’s 5:00, I call Erik he doesn’t answer, he calls me back 30 minutes later to tell me that he’ll be leaving the office in about an hour and he needs to make a quick stop somewhere to do something then he’d head home. I get home, I feed, bathe and get Laine into bed and call Erik at 8:00 he doesn’t answer. I make dinner, make our plates, put away leftovers, wash dishes and put our plates in the warm oven to keep then again I call Erik and again HE DOESN’T ANSWER. I sat in the living room until 10:30 reading my book (very very good book) and I drink one cup of coffee, I rinse it out before going upstairs, just in case it’s the reason I forget my lunch again and I head upstairs to check on Laine who had turned herself sidewise and was sleeping with her head hanging off the side. I gently move her up to her pillow then change her diaper and set up a bottle just in case she wakes up later. I climb into bed and try calling Erik one last time. It’s 11:00. He finally picks up. He’s working, he’s busy, he’ll be home when he gets home, and he’s busy.
I didn’t sound as upset as I wanted to because I needed to keep my voice down so as to not wake Laine up, but I told him that I am trying very hard to understand that he’s needed at work, that he has things to do to support this family, but that I need him to pick up his phone. I know my husband loves me and I know he’s always there when it really matters, I know he respects me and that he wants to make me happy, I know that he try’s very hard to do right by me, but the fact that I know that doesn’t change the fact that I become irrationally insecure when he doesn’t answer his phone for six hours after he said he’d be home in two. Where was he? Someplace to do something. That’s all I got. When I pressed him it’s in a server room at a client’s site. Of course it is. I’ve never doubted my husbands faithfulness I never will seriously I don’t think, but he’s really setting it up so that I’d never know. Lifetime movies are made with thinner plots than last night.
A big huge fat ANYWAY, I told him that I had his plate in the refrigerator ready to be reheated and that the front door was unlocked so he wouldn’t make too much noise coming in, if he was going to watch TV before bed, please don’t turn it up any louder than what it’s already set at, drive safe when you decide you want to come home and goodnight. I tip-toe/stomped up the stairs like a ballerina rhinoceros and crawled into my empty bed, alone; and I just laid there. Not being able to sleep. Wondering why he didn’t care that I get worried, wondering why he seems to completely disregard something like this, something that should be a non issue but over the course of the last EIGHT YEARS it’s become something that can bring me to tears almost every other night. I hate that Erik makes me cry so much but not nearly as much as I hate the fact that he just doesn’t seem to care.
I had to yank myself up from bed and call him right back though. He didn’t pick up the first time of course, but he did pick up the third time. I had to tell him I love him. So I did and he said it back. I drifted to sleep minutes after.
Erik woke me up when he got home, I didn’t look at the clock but I felt like I’d been asleep at least two hours, I asked him if he ate dinner he said yes it was good. I asked him if he ate the dinner I left him; he said no, he got drive-thru.