The World According to "Aaarrgh!"

Yesterday was a very hard day for me.  I spent much of the day weeping.  The smallest thing would set me off.  One of the boys found a gift box with my daughter’s name on it, and I had to run outside so the the children wouldn’t see me sob uncontrollably.  It was hell.

I went for a walk with the Missus and talked about my feelings and about my sadness.  I asked if she could talk to Number 2 to express to her how hurt and heartbroken I was.  They talked for the better part of an hour.  Then the three of us talked, genuinely talked.  It was a good start.

We talked about boyfriends, and how I scare off her potential boyfriends.  I don’t mean to, I just want to put the fear of God in them.  After all, this is my 16 year-old daughter we are talking about, and I don’t want her to be taken advantage of; I want her to be treated like a lady.  I don’t particularly care for the boy she is now seeing because of a past transgression, but, for my daughter’s sake, I am willing to be open-minded and wipe the slate clean.  People do change.  The Missus is proof of that.

My daughter expressed her sincere desire to stay.  She was angry with me, and lashed out the best way she knew how.  As we talked, it was revealed how much my ex-wife’s meddling had created this situation, as she had encouraged it, despite the fact that my daughter would have to quit her job, say goodbye to her friends and siblings, and start over at a new high school midway through her junior year.  It was also revealed that there were some very important things that my daughter told her mother in one of her venting sessions, information that my ex failed to relay to me.

So,  Number 2 is staying with me.  We talked about her bouts with depression, and that she will have to learn how to manage them.  Not only will she have to learn how to manage them, so will I.  When she goes through these bouts I become frustrated and depressed because I am powerless to help, and when I become depressed, other members of the house become depressed, because they are powerless to help me.  A friend at the office suggested that I seek professional help, that I did a world of good for him when he was having issues with one of his children.  As I know that there will be times in the future that I will have to deal with my daughter’s funks, now is the time for me to learn how to cope with them better, so that I don’t get dragged down myself and drag the rest of the household down with me.  I can’t stop my daughter’s funks from happening, but I least I can learn how to better respond to them.  I know for a fact that the way I have responded hasn’t been working to well.  I get so stressed out that I make myself sick, and I am of no value to anyone if I am sick.

There are two types of people in this world – those who think they know how to manage time, and those who really do.  I will go out a limb and conjecture that 90 percent of people fall into the former category, and 10 percent fall into the latter.  Now, most who just read that last sentence will swear:  I am wrong; they fall into the latter category.  Ironically, most who just read those last sentences are actually those who think they know how to manage time, but fail miserably, but, since they are working from an alternate reality, they don’t realize that they are in the former category.

The number one time management problem I see is underestimating that amount of time required to do a task.  This is problematic on several fronts.  First, they are never able to complete tasks when they say they will complete them, so after a while their time estimates are completely dismissed as bogus and out-of-touch, and on those rare occasions when they actually do complete what they are supposed to on time, conflict ensues.  Second, they impose their unreasonable time expectations on those who operate within the realm of reality, causing much unneeded stress and conflict.  As a realist, I have experienced this on both a personal and professional level.

I have had numerous bosses who were utterly and completely clueless as to how much time it took to complete a task.  I don’t know if they were using a Martian or Venusian calendar, but there expectations were ridiculous, and it would have been comically so if my rear hadn’t been on the line and chewed out for not meeting them.  For example, I had one boss want a completed design of a bridge in three weeks, because that is what he promised the client.  I tried to express to him that that wasn’t doable, that it takes many months to properly design a bridge, especially when you have zero survey data and utility relocations are involved.  I was told that I was lazy and incompetent and should be fired.  As it turned it, it took about six months to do it properly, but by that time I had had enough of being called lazy and incompetent and had moved to greener pastures.

My kids have unreasonable time expectations.  They don’t understand that there are variables with each and every task that complicate it.  Tasks aren’t as easy as “a-b-c”; there are periods, spaces, and carriage returns between the “a” “b” and “c” that you may not realize are there when you begin.  I’ve had something as simple as replacing a light fixture turn into a several hour ordeal, especially when you have a fuse block where nothing is labeled correctly and you have to guess by trial and error which fuse controls the juice to the light fixture you are working on.  Guess wrong, and you get a bit of a jolt.  I speak from experience about that.  Twice!

Since my kids have no concept about how much time it really takes to do something, I just give them the answer I think they want to hear.  Everything takes 15 minutes.

Why am I bringing up this issue?  Well it explains why I am so annoyed about my exes plans for Christmas.  You see, my ex is one of those people who has no clue as to time.  In the 21 years I have known her, she has always underestimated the amount of time it takes to do a task.  Because she always underestimates, she always over-schedules.  As a result, she is always late.

I don’t think she is maliciously tardy; I truly believe that it is because she underestimates the amount of time it takes to do a task.  For example, when we were still married, she would get the kids up no more than a half-hour before they were supposed to be at school, with the result being that we were always running late and I would have to drive like a reckless fool to get them to school on time.  When I mean reckless fool, I mean driving 60 down gravel roads.  It’s damn lucky I never had to stop on a dime, or else I probably wouldn’t be typing this right now.  Practically every day, she’d be fifteen-twenty-thirty minutes even an hour late picking up the kids from school, much to the frustration of the children.  After two decades, I gave up even having schedules, as I knew that each and every time the schedule would never be met.  Ironically, this same woman who couldn’t keep a simple schedule would spend hours and hours making them.  When we first met, she had planned every day of the next six years down to the quarter-hour, and blew each and every schedule.

When we were up in St. Louis at Thanksgiving, she was supposed to drive the kids to St. Louis.  She insisted that I drive the hour down to Farmington, and I had to be there by 9 sharp, as she had to leave at 9 to get to work in Kansas by 5.  My wife and I were there at 9; my ex arrived at 950.   She woke up when she had planned, but it took her longer than she thought to get the kids out the door. 

She requested that I let her come on Sunday at 10 to pick up the kids so that she could have more time to spend.  Okay, that sounds reasonable.  She showed up at 1130.  For 90 minutes, I had to have my kids ready to spring at a given moment to go with their mother.  She was supposed to have them back home at 830; she had them back at 930.  It took longer to cook the chicken than what she thought. 

Thus, my negative feelings about the whole “spending-the-night on Christmas Eve” thing.  I wouldn’t have a problem with it if I knew that she would have them back in time for morning Mass.  (There is more than one Christmas Mass, you know…)  But, I know she won’t.  My ex, my wife, and my kids have suggested that I drive to Kansas to get them.  I’d love to do that, and I’d have no problem doing that, if I was sure that they’d be ready when they are supposed to be ready.  But, based on recent history, I know that they won’t.  After all, I drove an hour to get them the day after Thanksgiving, and they still weren’t ready.  Frankly, the idea of spending half of my Christmas Day driving to Kansas and waiting for who knows how long because my ex is clueless as to the amount of time required to get the kids ready is not very appealing.  Based on past experiences, it’s a safe bet that it will be well into the afternoon until the kids are ready to go, which pretty much kills Christmas. 

Is there a damn thing I can do about it?  No, not a bit.  She is who she is.  She has always had no concept of time, and she never will.   What stinks about it is that other people are impacted.  Why make to effort to rush around on Christmas Eve to get the stepsons if the rset of the family won’t be there for much of Christmas Day, anyway?  Might as well let them stay with their fathers an extra day.

My reality of what Christmas makes me, well, rather irritable and grumpy right now, and so not in the Christmas mood.  And that is bad.  Very very bad.