For those of you who have been with me for a while you may remember that the day before I flew down to Virginia to drive back with him I posted on my blog about my worries that he would regret making the move. Can I foreshadow, or what?
Maybe part of it was the fact that in many ways I never thought that day would come. I thought there would always be something that held him back and prevented him from moving.
The other part, I’m sure, was that I knew how he was with his kids. His grown adult children, three of whom are living separately from him. Two who don’t even live in the same town as him- or the same state, come to think of it!
It was also a hell of a lot of pressure on me to be perfect. If he was going to leave behind everything I better be worth it, right?
Before I continue I want to say I know I’ve been picking him apart. I’m trying my best to poke holes in our relationship and show myself that it wasn’t as great as I thought it was. With that said I do recognize the sacrifice he made when he moved up to Indiana.
He may have kept his house (probably as a backup plan) but he did sell his business, he did leave his kids behind, and he did move up to where I was.
He actually moved in to my mom’s house with me. Originally we thought he would be making the move around December or January so I had offered to let him stay with me while she was in Florida. I figured that would give him three months to be able to save up what with not having a mortgage or rent to pay. He could stockpile that money and put a nice down payment on a house. And then my mom said it wasn’t like he had to get out the moment she came back. It took a few more months to finalize everything but when he moved up he moved in with us. Don’t worry- I didn’t live with him for a year so my support is not in jeopardy.
So I guess that brings me to his gripes about what living with me really was like. As a reminder he claimed that I would ignore him when I got home from work and not speak to him for hours and remembers many dinners eaten at the table where I would be reading on my phone. I didn’t carve out a space for him. He was pissed that he had to clear a shelf off in the bathroom and had to bring in a dresser from the shed in order to have somewhere to put his clothes. And most of all he was pissed that I wouldn’t defend him against my son although even when I would defend him he’d still be pissed because Picasso had dared to say anything that might anger him.
I will admit I did not have a space carved out for him. I had just got the office cleaned out before he came up. I did have an entire hanging rack for him, which I didn’t think would be a huge problem as I was pretty sure he hung up most of his clothes. My mom had even said, “You’ve got no space for him.”
Realistically I moved in with my mom. That was a huge transition- combining one household with another. Now we have a third adult with things of his own that is moving in. There’s not a lot of space. Honestly, he wasn’t supposed to be here forever. This was a temporary living arrangement while he got on his feet. Plus, I figured we could work things out ourselves once he got up here. But I will take responsibility for that. I did not carve out any space for him. I did buy him a pillow though. And we went and picked out sheets and a new bedspread.
I have to say I honestly don’t remember ever ignoring him or not speaking to him for hours when I got home. He swears I would spend all this time downstairs talking to my mom. My mom would tell you that’s total bullshit. All I ever did was talk to Matt. On top of that my mom’s house is not that huge. 1500 square feet. Maybe 2000. It’s a bi-level. It’s not like I could easily avoid him if I wanted to. I have no idea where he pulled this out of his ass.
The part about reading while I ate sounds like something I might do but all he had to do was say, “Hey! Talk to me. How was your day?” and I would have put it down.
What I told him though was that all I remember was spending our time together. We watched all eight seasons of Psych together. We would meet downtown for lunch when he was off and I was working. We’d meet downtown after work some nights and go play Pokemon Go and grab dinner. We ate dinner together almost every night. We slept in the same bed. We took my dog for walks. We went to Chicago. We went to concerts and baseball games. We planned to start cross country skiing. We went on bike rides.
He acts like I ignored him from the moment he got up here until the moment he left.
Does he want to talk about him playing video games all night long? No, he does not. That’s okay because that’s something he wanted to do.
I’m not sure if I was supposed to watch him play and cheer him on but apparently I was not supposed to play games on my phone or be otherwise occupied while he played Fort Night.
Don’t even get me started on his plans to deliver DoorDash to make some extra money since his route was only three days a week. I’d come home and he’d be sitting on the couch playing video games.
He’s real good at making plans. It’s his follow through that needs some work. Not to say he never went out and delivered, but most of the time he decided playing Fort Night was more fun. It wouldn’t have even been a big deal once he started his route but he came up here in August and he didn’t start his route until October. Meanwhile, his bank account is going down, down, down and he would rather play video games than go out and make a hundred bucks or so a week. He was living here for free but he still had expenses!
Are We Still Having Spaghetti For Dinner? 
Hmmm. Yup.
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