Soooo..... the larger of the 2 married neighbors has lost his dang mind. He's always been very needy with everyone, imo. Sought out approval. Wilted like a puppy if he's in the dog house with his family for yelling, or if he yells at his dog in front of a neighbor, etc. Talks about it, asks how it appears, is eternally sorry, blah blah.
So, I set a boundary around talking about his wife a while ago. And talking about women in general. In fact, I'm pretty stern with him, in general, which reminds me of how I interacted with the nuts contractor, come to think of it.
THIS is my instinct screaming.....something isn't right with this one, keep your distance, and I have.
I've been too busy to hang out with any of the neighbors, aside from running the newly post op married guy to the doctor when his wife asked and doing tandem yard work with my 80+ yo retired nurse neighbor who shares a miss border in our yards. We're preparing to put down Preen Extended care together. My sister and I put in a drainage ditch last year for her and missed the edges. Very attractive.
So....wow....Im really avoiding telling this story.
Yelly married neighbor guy (YG) texts he really needs "to talk" can we walk the dogs? I text I'm busy and don't hear from him. Good.
In spectacular Lighter fashion, I feel bad about avoiding him for months and months, bc if his botched root canal, and agree to walk the dogs with him....he likely needs a T, I think. Youngest DD thinks he does. He tends to talk at me in the yard and I listen and care for moss without interacting much.
As he's been suffering with that botched root canal, leading to a month of clove oil packing to kill the root slowly, I felt some guilt for not asking him about it...hardly at all. Feeling guilty for things I shouldn't is a reoccurring theme for me, I've noticed.
The walk was a big mistake, but I knew it would be, right?
Now, YG's wife and the post op cowboy's (CB)guy's wife walk their dogs everyday. Most of the time YG walks with them. I've been under the impression they're getting along much better, truth be told. I'm happy for them. Both wives bake yummy things for me. I bake for them. I've pretty much stopped hanging in the yards.....remember post op guy almost died after a year in hospital....weak as a kitten, lost tendons, an eye, I helped out quite a lot with his garden last year, etc. He got stronger and began giving me advice and telling off colored jokes and so did his wife. It put me off. I stopped hanging out. These folks are The Cowboy neighbors." I know illness has changed this man and humbled him, but he's still a cowboy. I'll always be drawn to underdogs, but am examining that quite a bit. His getting stronger meant I would go away. I did.
YG went from refusing to chat with the cowboy neighbors to having daily gab sessions where they guzzle a good deal of beer together, YG splits wood, fixes things for them and let's their dogs run and play. Letting that big crazy puppy run upset me a bit, bc there are little kids nearby, etc. It's uncool, imo and he runs all over the neighborhood. Agree to disagree.
YGuy just called....we talked about woodpeckers, he offered to close up woodpecker holes on my house, I said I'd do it myself....he sounded deflated. He talked about post op cowboy....it appears he's avoiding YG....in pain, not on porch for visits, etc. It feels like the wives have circled the wagons....I was wondering why CB neighbor lady brought me that last banana bread....,seemed like one too many to me. Everyone wants to be picked.
So, the walk in the forest the day before yesterday, YG blurts out he's filing for divorce after saying he thinks the clove oil did it's job....he'll get a filling then decide about a crown depending on discomfort. Now, in my father's family, teeth are everything and tooth pain is the worst pain. I'm overtly concerned about the tooth when the divorce blurt begins at the farthest point if the walk. I'm gobsmacked. That marriage seemed happier....just super weird and he did go on.
I mistakenly think this is schoolyard PICK ME! PICK Me! talk, typical when there's a split....I remember my father asking all our neighbors to choose between my mother and him. It was icky, and troublesome, but, hey....human nature and all that. I'd obviously pick YG, but will avoid all drama. Nothing to do with me.
Wow.....I guess I had to peck all this out for myself. I WILL make peace with it. I will.
So, YG blurt he's filing divorce soon and hopes I'll still " talk" to him. He's intensely earnest and seems concerned he'll be shunned. I get that....he's an extreme extrovert, from what I can tell. Likely to yammer at trees in the absence of people, imo.
I intend to avoid the drama, I think to myself, and say so.....there will be talking between us, he and his wife share children and will share grandbabbies.....they're obligated to get along, blah blah, when YG says....
"You've probably noticed I have feelings for you."
This is the point in the walk I realize we've walked a few miles away, into the forest, and have many miles to go. He'd picked two steep climbs I've never gone on, not even with youngest DD or the pug. I was a bit winded.....there were quite a few people around us....one guy singing happily. Things were normal one second and I was laser focused on EVERYTHING around me the next.
Pug is snarky and alerts to every passerby.....I was glad she was alerting. YG seemed annoyed at all the people. I started walking back and he followed. Usually I trail behind.....I never walk side by side with him....I notice this too, and he continues....he wants to know if I noticed his " feelings" which makes my plan to stringently ignore him impossible. I honestly answer I thought he had a crush on my chatty twin, and trek on more quickly.
YG has this thing where he appears pained, truly injured in the soul which I now recognize as a tactic I typically dismiss....Ive mastered being aloof, which apparently acts like creep nip.
I make jokes and YG continues being wounded....asks if my sister is to blame for this highly untrue belief.....and that makes me mad.....I say it was understood when he asked her out to a fancy pub tourist attraction. HE did this TO himself and he babbles....he likely asked everyone to go, and denies it, doesn't remember it.....Im walking walking.....hes exasperated.
I recognize this position also....where I laugh at the bumbling immature male as he innapropriately states intentions towards me I could and would never acknowledge unless my arm was physically being twisted.
It's familiar.
I laugh....state a truth making it clear the match is out of the question, and attempt to ignore the crazy blurt, dismissing it as laughable, which is reflex....not a well thought out response, I realize now. I have a dark side.....its the side that stuck my right hand in YG's face when he stopped walking and pleaded for me to stop too.
I don't know what his intentions were, but he took a step my way and I shouted STOP! My hand went up in a palm forward chin jab I would have landed with a good deal of force had he leaned in, which he did not, but it was really icky and felt super imminent....the same feelings the contractor brought up. Like he was lava and a tiny touch would undo me completely and torment my soul forever.
I don't understand that, exactly. I remember a boy at the skating rink....he had dirty fingernails....I was maybe 8yo....there was no contact, but I remember feeling THAT way about HIM. I dislike unwanted attention...as an introvert, I get it. I've grown a terribly thick skin in a family of extroverts with large opinions, blah blah blah but I have a definitive wall.....funny I think of it as a dark side. I suppose I was brought up to think of it that way, but I'm happy to find and embrace it as appropriate boundaries later in life, and there it is. My edge. Where I begin, in my head, and it's an uncrossable boundary protected by instincts, not to be crossed.
Dark side? That's going to require some attention.
So....from this point the walk back is a blur...I don't stop for anything. I act normal, he peels off, thank God, bc I made sure he had his dog hooked up around the creeks. He would have asked to wash his dog outside my house if he'd gotten muddy and I would have said to wash him at the CB neighbor's house. It would have been more awkward.
Here's the rub. I am mortified. I don't want to deal with this fool or have neighbors talk about him and ME in the same paragraph. Ever.
Youngest DD said I HAVE to address it. I resent having to acknowledge it, bc it's nothing to do with ME. How dare he create this drama and trouble in MY life? These are his clowns. HIS circus, imo.
I ignore a text from him, as I ignore most of them. I rarely feel compelled to stop what I'm doing for him. I don't want to be his T, remember? I'm sure his wife would mind, if I didn't. Common sense and gut feelings, all that.
So, I ignore his text and go about my day. Youngest DD is highly amused at the predicament....didnt see it coming either. A guy friend, with very good instincts seconds my choice to ignore. I go about my business and stop thinking about it. I know my ability to be super assertive under pressure will carry the day, if necessary. Calm descends.
While I'm writing this YG phones. I answer prepared to let him have it IF he makes the mistake of acknowledging what I'm prepared to ignore and avoid like the plague.
He's feeling me out....suggesting he bring his tall ladder and drill and close up woodpecker holes. I decline. I'll do it myself. Thanks, but NO. He seems puzzled....I was supposed to be grateful and accept.....this is the last nice day for 10 days. I don't care.
We talk about woodpeckers.....he trails off, deflated. I hang up with a curt " bye."
So, he'll push the boundary and I'll state it out loud, if necessary.....will think it through so it's super shot and over quickly.
I'm curious about my resentment of being forced to state a boundary I resent having to acknowledge in the first place. I have a huge resistance to being dragged near it, much less acknowledging and talking about it, hence the avoidance, but have we really avoided it? Really? The chin jab missed, but I did throw it. I did yell NO, it was a stated boundary, was it not?
What I resent is restating the stupidity. NO should be wholly and utterly enough, imo.
I feel as though my re stating the thing....the attraction....will taint my person and that's not true. It just feeeels that way. It feels like acknowledging it will make it more real, and that's wrong too.
So.....reactivity.
With a bit of distance I see clearly.....I will state that boundary and I won't let it inside my head. I'll keep it outside my world....its YG's drama. Not mine. I don't have to give him any attention or thought past what I choose.
If I feel guilty, which is typical from childhood, it's wrong and not mine to carry. I'm guilty of having boundaries and the world is going to have to deal with that.
Well there's some helpful clarity.
Sorry ahead if it's alarming, Hops. I'm safe.
Lighter
