Friday, January 29, 2010

An Old Truck

My husband's SUV started to break down about four months ago. He drove it for awhile but finally decided it was time to get a new vehicle - so he took mine. The SUV has been sitting in the back pretty much for four months, it still runs and he takes it out every now and then just to keep the battery charged. He wanted to make sure it would still run when he got around to buying a used truck, which is what he has wanted for sometime, and he was going to trade this in on it.

Last weekend we went truck shopping. He stopped at one dealership and looked at a pretty gray truck, it was okay but he didn't even bother to go inside and check on the details. We went to another dealership, then another, then another, and passed up a few more because they didn't look trustworthy. He finally stopped at one and found a burgundy colored Dodge, slightly bigger than he wanted. He did the usual walking around and kicking the tires bit, peered in the windows, checked out this and that and even managed to talk to the dealer who said he had a few more coming in on Wednesday. So he got back in the car and we came home.

Wednesday came and he took a half day off work and we went back to the dealer where he didn't even bother to look at the trucks that had just been brought in. He took a test drive in the burgundy one and said this is what I want and made arrangements to come back on Thursday to pick it up. Thursday came and we made the trip to take care of the finances and pick up the truck. The actual time spent buying this particular truck was less than half an hour. So basically I have been without transportation during the day for four months and it took half an hour to buy a truck. Why now, why actually do what he has talked about doing for so long - because some things are coming up where I need a car and he was going to be inconvenienced by not having a car during the day - even though I could have taken him to work, come home, done what I needed to do - gone back and picked him up (a 70 mile round trip) and bring him back home - which is what I have had to do for four months if I needed to keep the car. And also because my car is now in serious need of repair and he couldn't get that work done until HE had a dependable vehicle.

So Monday I will go to my appointment and then make arrangements to have the car repaired in time to go to another appointment on Friday. And the SUV, it is still in the back yard because this dealership does not take trade-in. Now he has decided he's going to get it fixed also, because it would be nice to have a four-wheel drive for when the roads are bad. And the newly purchased truck - the check engine light came on during the ride home!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

My Proudest Moment

Okay, so it is not really my proudest moment but it was a turning point in my war to get him to see me. We were driving to work. We drove to work together everyday. We had driven to work together everyday for years. He drove because he had to go further than me - 35 miles further. So it made sense for him to drive, drop me off, and then go on to work. We always left early enough for him to get to work on time.

That morning, as on about ninety-five percent of all our mornings, he forgot to drop me off and I would have to tell him to stop. Generally we only got a few hundred feet down the street where he would pull over and I would walk back to my office - through rain, snow, sleet, ice, hail - you get the picture. It was the principle of the thing - I was in the car - sat beside him everyday - yet he could never remember I was even there. So on this particular morning I decided if he did not stop, I was not going to say a word. So I sat quietly thumbing through a magazine, watching through the corner of my eye as we drove past my office. We drove past the computer repair store. We drove past Wendy's and the Dairy Queen. We drove past Krogers and the hospital. We drove past the gas station, McDonalds, the Storage buildings, and the drive-in movie screen. We were almost to the fork in the road where he would turn to drive out of town to his job. That's when he looked over and realized I was still there.

Believe it or not, he had the nerve to yell at me. To say "Why didn't you tell me to stop?" My reply, "Why should I have to tell you I was sitting here in this car with you? Why should I have to tell you to stop and drop me off at my job? Why do I have to tell you everyday that I am in this car with you so you can remember to take me to work? I had made up my mind that even if you drove all the way to your job and had to turn around and take me back, I was not going to tell you." He turned around and took me back. We didn't speak. In fact, we have not spoken about it since. I think he was late for work.

He never forgot again - it was, if not exactly my proudest moment, a triumph for visibility.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Where Do Pastor's Wives Complain

If you are a pastor's wife like me, where do you go to complain about the man you are married to? This is a problem that has plagued me nearly all of my married life and even before he became a minister. My family loves him, sometimes I feel they think he could have done better - much better. His family loves him, he was a tiny, premature baby and everyone has been protecting him ever since. His children idolize him, he is their hero. His congregation almost thinks he walks on water. I have no truly close friend. So where to I go, hurt and angry, frustrated beyond measure and no one to confide in.

Maybe that is why I started this blog. To vent, to rage, to hurl pent up frustrations at anyone who might stumble across my babblings. To hope someone out there understands what I deal with, my trials, my pain.

We do get along, We love each other. We hardly ever fight. And honestly, there is very little wrong with our marriage. I am sure I frustrate him as much as he frustrates me. However, the difference is if he lets me know what I am doing wrong I make an effort to change. He on the other hand has been told, pleaded with, even begged countless times and we are still dealing with these issues all these many years later. Sometimes when I let him know how he has hurt me he says he didn't realize he was doing it - as if we had never had this same discussion before. Sometimes he says he doesn't mean to hurt me. Sometimes he says he is sorry - most times I feel as if he is just telling me what I want to hear so we can be done with it. Which leads me to the main source of my frustration - that he does not hear me, that he does not consider me, that I am always an after thought.

So for today I think that will have to be enough venting. We are not currently fighting and bringing this up will only upset me. The weekend is coming and I would like to have some attention focused on me and be able to appreciate it.

Monday, January 11, 2010

It's Monday Again!

I don't think I like Mondays. I never seem to get anything done. I do the laundry and write senseless words on my blog. I think about the other things I have to do, but never do them on a Monday. Today I am not even doing laundry because my husband ignored my request to stop at the store yesterday after church to pick up laundry soap. I can't jump in the car and go to the store because one car is not running, the other car is going into the shop for the "hitting a deer" repair, and I don't feel much like bundling up and walking since it is around zero outside and I don't want to fall on the snow and ice and break another bone. So I will sit here and dole out useless bits of information about myself that no one is interested in and probably will never see.

We took the Christmas decorations down this week. It takes nearly as long to take them down as to put them up. I love Christmas so I decorate - lots and lots. I put up two nine-foot trees with enough ornaments to do seven trees. I have a Christmas Village with houses and people, churches and banks, grocery stores and movie theaters, farms and depots, skating ponds and hotels, schools and bakeries, caroloers and Indians, lions, tigers, and bears - or my. We have a stocking for every member of our family and if you were to visit, we'd hang up one for you. We have Santa hats for everyone who attends our family Christmas get together and extras for anyone else who shows up. We have enough food for a third world country and tell enough family memories to embarass everyone. There is love and laughter and everyone has a good time. However, sometimes among the good times there is emptiness when someone can't be home for Christmas. Maybe next year there won't be emptiness.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

January 6

Today is my youngest sister's birthday. She is 56. I will not call to wish her a happy day. She will not call me. I cannot remember when we have spent a birthday together nor for that matter, can I really remember when I have seen her last. I have not seen her more than once or twice in the last five years, since our mother passed away. She is not a family person - not our family anyway. Her daughter barely speaks to her, her son speaks not at all - perferring to call her his sister's mother. She is handicapped and spends most of her time in a wheelchair - however this is the least of her problems. She is a sad, lonely, bitter person who prefers not to be around those who knew her before she became who she is today. She has built a family of other sad dysfuntionals who live on the edge of society, alone in their struggles, together in their distrust.

Her life changed - when I am not exactly sure. It could have been the loss of high school love. It could have been the elopement with a young sailor who turned out not to be the person she thought he was. It could have been the cancer and loss of her leg at the age of 23. It could have any number of opressive events but change it did indeed. She has a loving family, three sisters, two children, three grandchildren, many neices and nephews - all who love her and once did all they could for her. She had parents who did more than most parents, even to the point of building an apartment onto their home so they could help when she lost her leg. I took her children for the months she was in the hospital. Money has flowed out to her in the ensuing years - money that was not used to help but to enable. We have done all we can. Now we can only pray change will come again - for the better this time.

How Did I Get Here

How did I get to this point in my life? How did I get so old so quickly? Questions I am sure others have asked - for the same reasons, for entirely different reasons. However I, like some other pastor's wives didn't marry a pastor and didn't marry with the intention of of ever being a pastor's wife. I was eighteen, what did I know. He was 20, what did he know. Yet here we are, many years later trying to live out our days ministering to a group of church people who have the mistaken idea that we know what we are doing.


Don't get me wrong, I love my life - for the most part anyway. I love my husband and I love being a pastor's wife. Yet there are days when I feel like that long-ago little bride whose life stretched before her in a fog of dreams and ideas of happily everafter with absolutely no clue as to how to get there.


Today it is my hope to use this blog to sort out my life, vent my frustration, gain some insight, list my hopes, acknowledge my fears, share my thoughts, and find out if there is anyone out there even remotely interested in my thoughts and writings. I hope you find me worthy of interest.