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In the wake of her breast augmentation surgery, Delia wasn’t supposed to lift anything over three pounds, raise her arms above her head, or really do anything at all for at least a week. But the first thing she did when she got out of the wheelchair and into the taxi cab was grab my heavy backpack and try to lift it into her lap (bumpy cab ride, sore boobs, she wanted a cushion). I was like, “noooooo!! What are you doing?!? You’re supposed to ask me to help you with things like that!!”

Clouds & sky the color of a Maxfield Parrish Painting

It wasn’t just that she was loopy from the surgery and still slightly sedated; during the time we spent in the hotel since then when I’ve been supposedly “taking care of her”, I’ve finally been able to see how extremely unlikely it is for Delia to ask for help. She just doesn’t do it. After more than eight years together you’d think I’d have noticed this before, and I have to an extent, but it never made the big impression on me it has in the past week.

I don’t know if it’s that she doesn’t think to ask for help, or doesn’t like asking for help, or is just doggedly determined to do everything herself. Or if it’s just ME that she doesn’t like to request help from. That would make sense, given the way that we met and our relationship was structured at the beginning with her as my “houseboy”; I told her what to do and she did it.

Normally I think that was a game that we stopped playing a long time ago, but I think I’m very wrong about that in some ways. It was never a game. Maybe it was a stylized way of expressing needs and personality traits that we’ll always have, that will always be a huge part of the dynamics of our relationship. And it was never about sex as much as it seems to other people or might have seemed to us at the time.

I have tried over the years to DEMAND Delia make demands of me when she needs or wants something or feels I’m not contributing enough in some ways. “Just TELL me if you want me to get off my ass and do something!! You don’t even need to say please — it’s not efficient! I don’t care!! Just tell me what you want me to do!!” It’s pretty stupid to hope for that (both because it is unlikely and because neither of us probably want to operate that way), and this past week is helping me see that.

Again, I don’t know what goes on inside Delia’s head and what the main obstacle(s) is/are to asking for help, but I can more plainly see through this experience that I really don’t like being interrupted to assist people. I don’t like nursing people enough to want to do it except on very rare occasions and in very limited capacities. I like the IDEA of being sweet and kind in that way, but mostly I’m just not.

It’s not that I don’t like physically attending to people or taking care of them — sometimes I love it — but I prefer to do it on my own terms (when *I* want to, not so much every single time someone requires it). I’m a very receptive person to people’s needs and demands and emotions and hurts and vulnerabilities and desires. Except for when I’m not, and then I’M REALLY NOT, and it’s very difficult for me to censor my impatience. I don’t like for people to feel like they’re putting me out, but I just hate being interrupted. My reflexive assholeness during these times continues to be a challenge for me to contain and a mystery to me of how deeply it may or may not effect my relationships with people close to me and their emotional safety around me: with Delia, most importantly.

These past few days I have asked her a million times if there’s anything I can do for her and checked in with her a billion times with how she’s feeling (for fear she won’t express it otherwise and I won’t know whether or not she’s healing awesomely or in total pain; she very very rarely tells me she is in pain, even when she IS). But maybe a lot of my millions of questions are my own anxiety-riddled way of trying to avoid being interrupted when it’s less convenient to me and just expressions of fear that I will not have enough control over the situation (whatever the situation is) if she doesn’t tell me what’s going on. I am not always being totally genuinely helpful or selfless, and I catch myself being irritated a lot. I don’t know how to explain this without sounding like more of an asshole than I am — I’m not irritated with her and I totally understand her needs and WANT her to express more of them, but I’m just really incredibly shitty about controlling my annoyance, no matter how tiny it is (if you know me at all, you know that LOTS of very little things grate on my nerves, things that other people don’t even notice; you should hear how much I freak out about florescent lights, for example, so it’s nothing personal).

The way I am in response to interruptions (even when I appear to be doing nothing but staring vacuously into space) is very much like normal people are in response to somebody sneaking up behind them when they think they’re alone and screaming “BOOOOOOO MOTHERFUCKERHAHAHAHA!” and tickling them really hard under the arms. It’s unreasonable to think a normal person will ever NOT (or ever SHOULD not) respond to that with an elevated heartrate, unsettling verbal protestation of some sort, and even resentment towards the person who startled them with that fright unless they’ve been broken down over weeks or months in a prisoner of war camp or something. Similarly, I’m not sure that it’s reasonable for me to think I (or other people with wiring similar to mine) will ever train myself out of responding with aggravation to intrusive stimuli. I do work on it and try to be aware of it and try to learn from experiences like this one of being in a hotel room with a loved one recovering from surgery for days on end, but I also recognize that sometimes the best thing I can do is acknowledge what is not my strong suit, try to explain my limitations with sincere apologies, and just avoid the hell out of situations that test me for extended periods of time (and thank the powers that be that I have that luxury).

Still, it’s really depressing to know that people I love have good cause to be nervous about what kind of peevish reactions they may get when they approach me. It’s not like I jump and backhand every living creature that gets within two feet of me — it’s more subtle than that, but still — over time it probably impacts them in unpleasant ways I wish it wouldn’t. I guess I can console myself that other people (even “normal” people) are way worse than I am about this and don’t even acknowledge it as a problem.

*****

Once I expel my initial big melodramatic sigh at being asked for help, I do enjoy helping sometimes (this is another problem I have: I take a really really long time to do things other people quickly rush through — this drives my little sister and my mom crazy, how I will take forever to chop up a vegetable or read a bedtime story to my nephew when apparently I’m supposed to know that you’re supposed to just make simple shit up to turn pages that have more words on them than three year olds can process but those are more reasons I hate helping people sometimes; they won’t let me do it my way or they get mad at how long it takes me or the questions I ask to perform the requested task). This also drives Delia crazy, I think, but she is better at censoring her irritation than my mom and sister are and is more sensitive to me getting really defensive about it.

Sometimes — actually, a LOT of times — I actually enjoy “helping” so much after I get over the pain of switching gears that I’m extremely averse to rushing through it. I don’t know how to do certain things without care or savoring their details. I want to do that thing to the exclusion of everything else, to be totally immersed in it.

You know how Delia’s hair is naturally super curly? She has to put a whole shitload of oils and cremes and conditioners in it to keep it from being a big frizzy monster bush. While she’s recovering, she can’t have her arms up and hands in her hair to do that, so she has sweetly asked me to dry her hair and apply these products.

So I try to choke down my .75 second annoyance with the poor timing of it all, what with me having finally gotten my fingernail properly placed to lift a scab off my scalp or tweet something I think is really pithy, and go into the bathroom where she’s sitting on the toilet. I try to sop up the moisture from her hair gently so I don’t damage her hair or break her neck, but I must be doing it wrong because Delia rearranges the towel to prompt me to go at it a different way. Then I start really getting into slicking my hands with oil and distributing it as evenly as possible through her hair, coating every frizzing spot. Then she has me put in her leave-in conditioner and comb both that and the oil through. She informs me that I can’t possibly apply TOO MUCH of this, but I still prefer to portion out gobs of it in individual handfuls instead of just dumping it on all at once. Then she has me put a clear no-frizz curl-keeper serum and I scrunch it through and shape it and fluff it even though she tells me I don’t need to do that; it will get big all on its own, but I still want to feel her cool, damp hair in my hands and move it around on her head.

I love her so much while I’m doing this and feel so tenderly and totally in love with taking care of her this way and protecting her hair (even though she’s chuckling to herself over how fucking long it’s taking me and how insistent I am that she just let me do it my way I never get to do this when she tries to explain I don’t need to be so careful about it and the way I’m doing it isn’t going to make a difference). And for a stupid STUPID heartbreaking moment I love it so much that I wish we had a child, a little kid with hair to comb and a head to pat and stroke and lavish love on and look up at us while we braid her hair or whatever.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m thinking, wanting a little person with constant need when I’m so easily aggravated, but then I think of all the daddies who are like, “don’t disturb me while I’m in my den/watching the game/working on my hobby car!” And I know everybody loses patience sometimes. And I know that my nephews don’t think I am mean or impatient or unapproachable. But they also don’t recognize that they’ve never gotten to stay over without their mom for more than one night because THAT WOULD BE TOO LONG FOR ME TO ENDURE. Anyway, I can’t even brain my OWN hair and have never wanted to learn to braid anybody else’s. If we had kids I’d probably shave their heads to make things easier.

So I guess thank the stars or whatever that we didn’t get pregnant.

But I confess, we’re still paying for sperm storage. JUST IN CASE.

*****

I remember my sister barging in asking what in the world was taking so long???? last time she was over with her kids and I was in charge of pre-bedtime with my oldest nephew, Mr. Squishypants. I’m like, we’re listening to music! and talking about the tree-guys! and just sitting here watching the candle flame!

She was like, JESUS, Trixie — hurry up! And I whined for her to just let me do it my way! I’m the aunt! I never get to have this special time with him!

She just sighed and was like, “okayokayOKAY!” And it took me awhile to remember that she was waiting for bedtime with me, her sister, too and for both her kids to be asleep so she could relax and I was using up all of our time together because I don’t know how to fucking balance things or rush through what I love even if it’s to get to something else I love just as much.

I mean, just don’t get me started if you need to have something done in a big fucking hurry. And that is why I have such a hard time starting anything at all. Because I know it will take me a long-ass time and I won’t want anyone to interrupt me while I’m doing it.

3 Responses to “Delia? Ask for Help?? And Maxfield Parrish Clouds (PIC)”