Well, I'm back in NJ, and have been for a few days now. So far it's been pretty cool. I've been out with Joe twice, and Val once, and have spoken on the phone with Mary a few times. I'm hoping to get together with Nathan soon. This weekend the yentas are coming over (Saturday) and the West Windsor RenFaire is Sunday, so it should all be fun. The local Radio Shack is hiring, I'm thinking of applying. Push comes to shove, I can always walk there and back if I can't get a ride. Here's hoping.

Emotionally, I feel ok. I miss Dylon a bit, the island not at all. Not even in the face of the heat and humidity here. Amazing, hm? Not really.... I was really despising the isolation and boredom. Mom is almost overwhelmed with stress, so I'm going ot help her as much as possible. Gramma is annoying as always, getting deaf. Louis seems to be doing well, as do Melissa and Helge.

Well the events of last week's post have blown over, and we've both realized our faults with what happened-- classic case of miscommunication (as most problems are). However, the extent and strength of his reaction doesn't phase my opinion of him-- he's got big issues, and refuses to work on them.

I'll be leaving this weekend. I've tried many, many times to get him to come with us, if not now then eventually, but he continues to refuse. It's sad, but I can't say it's a shock at all. He's willing to make small sacrifices but not big ones.... and I'm just the opposite. I won't do the small ones, but I'm willing and able to make big ones. What does that mean about us? I don't know anything except, it certainly makes us incompatible.

Had a sizeable argument with Dylon today. He yelled at me, saying I'd insulted him by saying he hadn't been supportive of my desires to get off the island ( ! ). I guess his definition of "supportive" is discounting and disproving every idea I have towards moving off-island by telling me every possible and impossible reason why it won't work. He's disappointed in how I haven't done things as he would, and so I'm the one who's unreasonable in not trying harder to fit in here and find work and friends, etc.

I told him I was no longer willing or even capable of changing myself to suit other people-- I was accepting myself as I was, and that's that. I don't fit in here, and rather than reformulate my personality so I do, I'm going to where I do fit in.

He's got an impressive martyr complex, too-- thinks that he's done EVERYTHING for the relationship, that he's given up EVERYTHING. Conveniently forgetting how I LITERALLY gave up everything-- family, friends, car, home, possiblity of career, graduate school, children-- EVERYTHING to come here to be with him.

Turns out he's quite capable of the old passive-aggression thing himself. All that work he did toward talking me out of going to Sudbury was because he couldn't come out and say, "I don't want you to go." Instead, he just spent the past 5+ months telling me how my logic was flawed, how I wasn't making a sensible decision, blah blah blah.

I was feeling bad about leaving, before. Now I don't. He's just made it easier for me by acting this way. When he was all sweet and mournful, I felt awful about it. But not any more.

I just figured out a major part of my own psyche. I just realized that my resentment over the issue of housework, shopping, cooking...
my reluctance to do any of them when before i used to enjoy keeping house, whipping up tasty treats, etc. was passive aggression.
I didn't feel i could actively go against him, to express my anger at his inflexibility.

I used to love to cook and decorate and all sorts of Martha Stewart-y type stuff. Well, i can't stand it now. The only way i could "get back at him" was to fight back all sly and devious. I hate that. We really do become what we despise. My father was Captain Passive-Aggression when he was married to my mother, and I hated when he'd do that. This is gonna take a lot of meditation to work out of me.