Today I am supposed to be doing invoicing. While it doesn’t SOUND difficult, there are a few projects are broken into small “progress” invoices, and this is where things start to get insane. Heck, sometimes we have a fully executed contract, noted and copied at BOTH offices, and we can’t agree on what the contract value is. And then there are the issues that come with changes to the contract, which usually happen AFTER I have sent out the invoice, which mean that the invoice I sent out is WRONG.

And this is what I am trying to deal with today:

1.progress invoices for big projects to which  I didn’t do the original 6 progress invoices… and this is a freaking MESS because I can’t figure out what might need to be done with the invoice, because it has to go out on Monday. But my manager seems to be as math-challenged as I am, and his numbers on one page don’t match the actual computer calculations, so I am not sure WHICH is correct. I have gone over and over it, but I don’t know where he is pulling the numbers from, because the listed numbers on the standard progress don’t match the numbers he has given me for the invoice.

2. Credit invoices for jobs where the project managers got together AFTER the final invoice was sent, and decided to issue change orders. SO, that means I get to go through the invoices and determine what portion is to be credited back. And that means a NEGATIVE invoice. Now, what the CLIENT wants is a completely NEW invoice issued… which my head office, since we are a publicly traded company, does NOT do. So there is a lot of bickering back and forth.

3. Regular invoices.

4. Dossier updates, document management, mail outs…

And I so don’t feel in the mood to try and slog through this all, its just been such a week at work that I feel frazzled by the non-splendiferousness of the work-a-day world. I mean, I have gotten through payroll issues, HR requests, SCM changes, memos and edicts from the divisional boss, changes, notes, recieveing, re-recieving, corrections, and tracking… and I’m, quite frankly spent. I know I have to do it, and I will go through as much as I can on my own, but today I just do NOT feel like I am qualified to do the accounts recievable (lets just state, for the record, that when I was hired the AR was handled by a part time person who had done it for YEARS in this industry, and when she suddenly decided to retire, she just stopped coming in (and as a casual hourly employee what can I do, fire her?) and the few times she was in last I was so busy with the other 40 duties of my job that I couldn’t focus with her to be trained. So I am flying blind with no support, no training, and trying to balance the various demands out from every department in the organization.

So… I’m working away. It is super quiet in here, without Gordo sitting in his office complaining to himself or Dave in his office chattering on the phone. I could get so much done, and I have gotten somewhere with things, but I am dragging today.

I am looking forward to seeing RGG (really great guy) later tonight, making cookie dough, ordering pizza, and knitting. Friday is totally a cheater night for us, and i feel bad about it but after a week of trying to rush home and make meals, wash dishes, toss kids in tub, do laundry, sweep up, clean up, tidy, and organize the house, I feel like collapsing on the couch and snuggling up with RGG after the kids go to bed. Yep, i’m feeling very twitterpated right now over this boy. I can’t wait to see him on weekends, and although I know that this feeling will lessen over time, I am really LIKING the heady anticipation that encroaches into my mind starting Thursday nights.

I have met his daughters. I think I want him to meet my kids… and I think that I will be inviting him and his daughters to come with my kids and I swimming at a hotel that I got a free night (for my kids and I, from the hotel, because my company does SERIOUS business with them all year) in a Medieval Castle room there and they have 2 indoor pools. And its more fun for the kids if there are other kids there. I do not think its too fast, because I think there is at the VERY least serious potential that even if this doesn’t go anywhere or it fizzles, RGG and I will remain friends because we are both just “that” way…

So…

Its frazzling and anxious, because I don’t know if I owe it to STBX to “warn” him that I will be introducing the kids to my friend (because he “warned” me this past time, but I know it was only at the insistence of his friend (because, he wants her back, and that was sorta a stipulation — he ask me if it is okay if she is introduced to the kids (and really, if he’s sure about her, what the hell business is it of mine?) or they were through) but he hasn’t told me any OTHER time that he introduced them to girlfriends. Part of me thinks it is just polite to tell him, but part of me thinks it is not really HIS business and inviting him into my business is just stupid.

Because, as much as I want to be an adult, I know that if I say “hey, I have been dating this guy and I am going to introduce him, as a friend to the kids, what do you think?” I am going to hear from STBX how it is too soon, and he’s going to think that that means HE has a valid opinion in the matter of who I date, when I introduce the kids, and who I can have in my life and when… and that’s not true. He will bring up K, and how he assumed I was cheating with K on him, and how it was a disaster when I introduced K to the kids (which it wasn’t, because they knew K because they knew his son first and K was just my friend and the dad of THEIR friend)…

Seriously, I don’t think it is STBX’s business who I am dating or how long or serious it is. I am not asking his PERMISSION, because I am not intending to replace him as a father in their lives, and they know that. They are not too terribly worried about ME remarrying, I have heard that over and over that they would LIKE me to remarry (and I’m not sure about that issue yet) but that they are afraid of their father remarrying. I’m not sure why that is… but I have not had an issue with them and me dating. I will let STBX know I am going to, but I will not choose not to based on HIS reaction, and he has no right to question my relationships, that’s just how it is.

Anyway…

I settled for STBX because I thought that he was someone that would fulfill what my family wanted for me — stable provider who was relatively kind to me and seemed to be supportive and liked children. Partly my choice of STBX was based on the fact that, as a rebound from a VERY bad relationship, he looked very good in comparison with the previous boyfriends. Partly I was wooed by the flowers and gifts, interest and gentleness that came from him BEFORE we were engaged. And that disappeared immediately after we were married, which should have been a hint that he didn’t care anymore…

The point is not what happened, but the fact that I SETTLED for someone that I wasn’t sure of because I felt that I was ready to enter the next part of my life — I was ready to be married and I was ready to start a family (at 23!!) and here was someone that seemed “good enough” to fill the role of husband, father and provider and who SEEMED a good match for me in the role of mate.

And that didn’t work out very well, did it? Like I stated before, it really didn’t take long before he was embarassed by me, when he took the opportunity to live away from home, and before I was just another stupid “purchase” tossed aside and taken for granted. And in the end the constant loneliness of being in a marriage with someone who really didn’t want to get to know me, and who wanted to believe I was cheating on him was too much. And I left.

Yes, I know… it doesn’t seem to be common for women to leave, from what I understand often the women ask the men to leave, and they retain the home until the house can be sold… but in my case I knew STBX would not leave the house AND provide support for the kids so I could pay the bills, and that left me little choice but to seek shelter somewhere else. And I left.

And I entered into yet another relationship disaster.

Only THIS disaster didn’t look like the first one. This one looked very very different.

Instead of being embarassed by me and wanting to keep me hidden, K seemed to glorify me, and to hold me up as some prize or goddess that he had been awarded by the Gods. But the problem was that he seemed to be holding me up to some divine standards — he expected me to feel exactly the same way about him that he felt about me, and I just didn’t.

For the most part K was very good to me… but there were moments when he clearly thought I had failed to live up to his standards of what our relationship was that he made me feel very very small, and very very unhappy. And the problem was that the unhappiness stayed, the relationship was quickly permeated by the feeling of unhappiness from him that I didn’t love him enough or in the way he wanted, and my unhappiness because I didn’t know why I didn’t feel the same way.

He treated me sometimes like a goddess, sometimes like a child, and it was always a very large discrepancy from what it was that I wanted. He would glorify me, telling me how lucky he was to have me, how he never thought he’d be this happy. And then at other times I felt like he was “raising” me, like I was a child-like thing to him, to be cradled and cared for, to be taught to be the right way… the way he treated me mirrored VERY closely the way he treated his only child. And that was a bit disturbing to me.

I never felt like an equal with K. I felt like I was either seen as “better” than he could deserve, or as if I were something to be cared for and protected, like a bunny or a child. And I didn’t want that. Because in the end, when I openned my eyes and saw for myself that this wasn’t working for me, I couldn’t really explain why to him or myself. It just wasn’t RIGHT for me, and honestly that should have been enough.

But it wasn’t, as he used every reason, every uncomfortable feeling, every issue that differentiated us to “improve” and every “improvement” as a reason to backlash against the fact that I didn’t feel as strongly as he did. And in the end it was very much a whiptail effect — as I felt disconnected he reacted by overdoing and overcompensating, and that made my feeling of discomfort worse, which would lead to him attacking my reasons and pushing harder to make it up to me by being more like what he thought I wanted.

But the very soul of the issue was not religon, tidiness, child rearing, hobbies, interests, or friends. It wasn’t getting out and having fun or relaxing. It wasn’t communicating. It wasn’t money or financial choices. It was just a feeling that we were not mates, not partners, and the fact that there was more guilt and obligation than care and love in the situation.

And I also found it creepy that, after the fact, I found out that K had made an oath to HIS GODS (not my Gods, not ME, not even himself, but to HIS Gods) to protect me from being abused again. I find this creepy in the same way I always think it is creepy when Christian people “pray” for you, its a feeling that you’re not able to entreat your OWN diety or Dieties on your own behalf, but that you are so spiritually deficient that you need someone else to take on spiritual responsibility on my behalf. Yuck.

I deny his right to do this, and therefor his worry that he is an “oath breaker” since the oath is not HIS, since he has no right to my spirit as he is not my mate/partner/husband… I have not given him a part of my spirit… and I don’t APPRECIATE the idea of being protected or guided or saved without being ASKED first.

So, yeah. I didn’t like being doted on because I felt too much like a pampered pet or an indulged child and not much like a fully capable adult woman who’s views and education had bearing on the focus of the relationship.

So… what DO I want?

I want a true partner, not someone who pats me on the head and gives me things, solves my problems for me, or who spouts on about undying love and how I am the only thing that makes him happy. I want someone that truely makes me happy, who I smile when I think of him. I want someone who knows that I am strong and capable, and can push me to get over my fears and do the things that I want to and need to, instead of being mired in self doubt.

I don’t want to be someone’s WORLD, I want to be part of their world.

I want someone positive. STBX was always negative about me and our outlook, K was just all around negative in almost everything he did and said (to the point of actually telling me he was thinking his life was OVER when I didn’t want to be with him anymore, and refusing to accept that feelings had changed). I want to move on with my positive life, I want to feel open and free to explore things inside myself and outside without being told that its stupid or embarassing or needs to be hidden.

And I am at the point, really, in my life where I want someone because I want a mate and partner, not because i NEED one. Maybe I never REALLY needed a relationship, maybe i never really did. I firmly believe that the only reason I settled for STBX was because I was “ready” to have kids and I wanted a settled man for that. I picked wrong. But at 20 I didn’t know that I had YEARS left to have children.

Now I can’t have children. I mourn the loss of my fertility, because I liked having children, being pregant. I know there is still posibility, somewhere down the line (should I ever be able to get divorced from STBX) if I want to. Did I have children with the wrong person? He isn’t a bad father, for all that he was neglectful as a husband. But I do wish I had been with someone who would have loved and supported me through and after pregnancies…

I would like another child… but at my age, given the fact that most men I know already HAVE children, I don’t think its likely.