Over three hours...

Staggering out of couples counselling... started a bit after 10pm, out at 1:20am. Not particularly productive, we rehashed old boundary issues, old OSO issues and then talked about the upcoming trip. Worked out mutual strategies to correct things between us on the road... we'll see how they work in practice.

But I was just rambling at the end, and so was patgreene... we wound up discussing child-discipline tactics at 12:30am. Useful, at some level, but it didn't have to happen *then*. And going past the one hour that insurance covers... there were better ways to spend $250, I think. Feh.

Home at 2am. I was wound up and couldn't sleep until nearly 4am. Pat crashed but needs more sleep than I do, so I got up and relieved her this morning and got the kids off to school.

One note, though... I need to feel like I'm worthy of having my needs met. Of asking without feeling like an imposition or burden, when I'm plainly not anyone's ongoing dependency. And that I deserve partners and friends who appreciate me as I am, without having to try to project carefully-crafted versions of myself to meet their perceived desires and needs.

telecon results

Yep, time to go around our lousy shipping dept. and hand-carry items to Spain... so our student intern happens to be on the same flight as CS and will give her a backup imaging spectrometer when they're on the plane. Carryon-to-carryon. Right. Over the Atlantic, and this medium-skinned Indian guy is going to take a 4"x 8" metal widget out of his backpack, and walk around the cabin looking for someone... (shakes head).

(no subject)

Pat's mom is missing at SFO. Pat is searching... the plane landed 45 minutes ago. We don't know if she was on it.

I'm supposed to single-handedly create the outline of a proposal by tomorrow morning. JL keeps calling,,. alternating sad and strident.

Oh, and my project plans in Spain are yet again thrown into turmoil at the last minute, and there's not a damned thing I can do about it.

And AR defied instructions on shipping, so we may not have all of our gear in Madrid on Monday. I'm trying to trace it.

Maybe I can rearrange things at the last moment, shifting duties and rooming arrangements and cellphones. I don't even know who's going...

My stress levels are soaring. I have no one to lean on, except me.

I've been here before... things will work out, somehow. Time to suck it up.