Breathing my Mind into Your Face

Yesterday afternoon I had back to back calls with two big clients. They each notified me they’d be terminating their contracts with us ASAP. I had an inkling when two random half-hour meeting requests showed up in my inbox on the last day of the month. Then they turned my inkling into an inkblot. So that’s $135K revenue/month down the drain. Then my boss told me  that I’d get 5% of all the direct margin increase we could muster in November / December, utilizing October as the baseline. Double whammy. The 35% salary bonus based on hitting our annual operating plan goals got tossed out when new ownership arrived. I wasn’t feeling super down about it, that’s just life on life’s terms. Nothing I’m going to keel over and start chugging booze because of. I’m just objectively noting it was not sweet news. 

The work stuff ended a little after five with neighborhood trick or treating set to pop off at 5:15. H was ready for action, but the fit on J’s gladiator armor was too off center for him to bear. So my wife busted out the box of old costumes from the basement and none of them would do. Then J buried his head in his pillow and said he wasn’t going trick or treating. I left to walk around our 11 house neighborhood with H and let mamacita handle the J man situation. It was rainy but not freezing, so that was nice. Eventually J came out to trick or treat, but he only agreed to wear the Spirit version of a gladiator bane (under armour long sleeve t shirt thing) with his sweatpants. So we were in business. Trick or treating went off without a hitch. My golf buddy Tim offered me a roadie when we got to his house, but I said “no thanks”. Who knew you could just say “no thanks”. Fuck, that’s liberating! No issues with bedtime either, despite excessive candy intake. Thank you melatonin!  

When wife went to bed I went to the playroom to watch an episode of that new Game of Thrones season. I fell asleep halfway through as I couldn’t understand their accents well and wasn’t seeing enough nudity to keep me engaged. Then when I got into bed at 11 my expectation was that i’d fall asleep right away, then wake up at 6am feeling refreshed. That didn’t happen. I laid there and tried all my typical sleep inducement tricks (long slow breaths, touching my heart and my belly, hugging myself like a mummy, counting, mind zone out / silencing), however, after an hour my mind was still loud as fuck. So I took a prescribed trazedone to help me settle in for some sleep. Another hour of laying there resulted in me taking two more trazedone’s. That did the trick.

I slept until 7:30. I went downstairs and life partner had already gotten the kids breakfast, snacks, waters, documents signed, and dressed. It was supposed to be my day for that. She also notified me I forgot to take out the garbage and we’d already missed the recycling. I had a mind cloud from the sleeping pills coupled with the guilt of taking two more trazedone than prescribed and not fulfilling my fatherly duties. I ran the kids up to the bus stop and when I returned she was putting the finishing touches on her lunch before leaving for work. She went to pour her to go cup of coffee but there was no coffee in the pot. I’ve been drinking mint or green tea in an effort to slash the caffeine habit. Because of the brain fog I took a cup of coffee today. Then she said, “Hey can you do a load of laundry today? I’m going to be super busy when I’m working from home tomorrow.” To that I answered, “I don’t know. I’m really busy today as well, I just lost two big accounts yesterday, I’ve got a lunch meeting with a client in Birmingham, then have to take H to ninja class starting at 5:30. Typically laundry is something you handle.” Turns out that wasn’t a great response. After she heard that she started yelling at me, “You don’t have five fucking minutes to throw a load of laundry in then transfer it to the dryer when it’s done?” Me: “All I said was ‘I don’t know’. That’s usually something you handle and I’ve got a very busy day today. If it’s only five minutes, isn’t that doable for you tomorrow when you’d normally be doing it anyway. Why is it necessary to put the laundry on me?”. Then she said “fuck you, I don’t like you”, slammed the door and drove off. We eventually sorted it out over text message during the day. She said sorry, she’s feeling a lot of resentment because I’ve been so focused on my stuff (AA) and didn’t think it’d be a big deal for me to put the laundry in. I did not apologize in my response to her, instead saying “All good. I’m just trying not to internalize everything anymore. When I keep the way I feel inside it ultimately boils over. I can get the laundry. I was feeling crappy for watching tv in the playroom then taking extra sleeping pills to get to sleep. I felt like I was going back to my old habits minus the weed and booze. I will keep trying to turn the corner on my shitty behavior and instincts.” Looking back on it now, I should’ve just said yes to the laundry and made some more motherfucking coffee. 

This evening I went to dinner with my AA sponsor so we could get to know each other better. Then I went to an AA meeting on the deck at this old dude’s house. Since I was a newcomer to that meeting, tonight’s share was about what brought us to the program. Telling my story, hearing so many similar stories, and seeing all those happy faces turned my day around. It’s called fellowship and I’ve been afraid of it all my life. Now I’m willing, it’s working, and I’m getting better each day. Off to lay in bed and stare at my eyelids. Love to all.