With these words, about a week and a half ago, my wife charmed me.
I have to admit, she was right. If she were to say it again now, a week and a half later, she may still be right. Perhaps I should ask her. Then again, perhaps I shouldn't.
We were on our way out the door with the boys and I was grumping about how difficult and time-consuming a process it often is just to get all four of us dressed and out the door. Most of the difficulty, and my subsequent ire, lying with our sons. I too often let it get to me. Amy took that particular time to point out that I really need to lighten up and be, well, less of an asshole.
I feel I should take this next space to reinforce the stance I took immediately upon hearing that: I wasn't offended. I think it's safe to say I rarely am by my wife. We have stumbled upon a rather idyllic situation where I am a fellow who appreciates honest feedback, even when it rears up as constructive criticism, and my darling Amy is a woman with the God-given gift of implacable honesty. Did I mention unrestrained? Because it's that too.
It's partly in the delivery, too, quite frankly. My attitude right at that moment was that of being one with my inner asshole (really gritting my teeth and squinching my eyelids), and Amy was simply poking it in that sensitive spot under the armpit that can't help but elicit a reaction of some sort. Plus, there's this way she has (with me, anyway) of casting her eyes down and her head a little to the side and saying what she has to say with a real element of self-effacing bluntness in her tone. Then she looks up at me with her guileless eyes, blinks once or twice without saying anything, and looks down again as she puts on her own shoes to head out.
It's times like that my only reaction - internal and external - is that of: yeah... I guess I have been acting sort of like an asshole, eh?
It's complicated, but I think I'm going to chalk it up to not taking enough time for myself and so exhibiting that frustration pretty much just as soon as I walk in the door after work in the evenings. My inner asshole's been looking for an outlet all day, and GOD DAMN but that stack of dirty dishes by the sink is enough of a catalyst to let him out!
[Hang on... I have to refill my scotch. I'm now out of the Auchentoshan so I'll have to downgrade to the Glenfiddich.]
Where was I? Oh yes, being an asshole.
I am a man who thrives on a certain degree of order and predictability (as anyone who knows me will tell you), so you can well imagine that living in a house with two small boys aged two and four is pretty much anathema to my very existence right now. And yes, I do - often - let that get to me. My frustration, at times, is palpable, unpleasant, internalised, and almost wholly impotent. Silly, really.
I know, I mean I KNOW, that entropy will win. The whole universe is an open system, for Christ's sake. The odds are stacked astronomously against me, but still, there is this part of me that wants to contain my tiny little corner of the Local Fluff and make of it something with an element of predictability and structure.
I blame work, too. It's been throwing me for an occasional loop since 2003. That's when we were sold and have been enmeshed in the inexorable and rather ugly process of becoming a bureaucratic corporation for the past five years. Educational and eye-opening, yes. Fun? Not so much.
Used to be that hiring a "new guy" was reason enough for different people to take him out for lunch his whole first week. "Did you see the New Guy?" "No! Who is he? Let's go meet him and take him to Earl's for wings and beer!" "Yeah! On the company dime, wooo!"
Now, and for the past few years, it's been a frikkin' revolving door. So while our overall payroll has more than tripled since I started, I am now one of the single longest-serving employees of well over 2,000. Mine erstwhile construction brothers in arms have been fleeing, falling and forsaking their posts, and that, too, is rather more entropic than befits my nature.
June will mark nine years with the same company for me (since university graduation), and I can probably count on one hand now those of 2,500 who have been employed there longer. It feels like individuals matter less and can more easily fall through the cracks, and, knowing that, are often more inclined to do so.
I need a vacation.
Thankfully, I have one coming up for a week and a half in May. Most of that time will be mine, and that will be a good thing for everybody in contact with me. And for me most of all.
I miss my wife too, which is no small part of my transformation into an asshole. My day starts most often around 5.30 in the morning (I *try* to exercise first thing most days), and continues through until about nine o'clock in the evening. I figure that's about when I can put my feet up a little without too much of a guilty twinge. The boys are in bed, shopping is put away, dishes are done, the house is generally tidy, (nothing wet and/or alive on the floor, anyway), and distractions are at their lowest. Amy's normally the first one in bed, and I sometimes trail behind her by an hour or more, depending on what else I feel I HAVE to do before allowing myself the luxury of our memory-foam mattress. Real quality time with my missus, then, is, to quote a young Obi-Wan Kenobi, "...elsewhere, elusive."
I want to know her on a daily basis more than I do, in terms spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and biblical. But of course, knowing women as well as we all do, there are elements of that desire rather more complicated than others, especially where fatigue and doing the dishes at 10 PM enter into it. (I wear latex on a nightly basis, but it's only ever to prevent dishpan hands.)
So, frustrated by my perceived inability to satiate what I think of as the majority of my wants, I vent my frustration in the manner only a tried and true introvert can: I become an asshole to those closest to me.
With all that under the bridge now, here's hoping to a fine April and a marvelous vacation/recuperation in May. It's supposed to be absolutely fucking balmy here this weekend, so the melting and the sun and my total lack of pants will also do wonders for my demeanour.
Here's to me being less of an asshole.
