A Flash of Anger

So Flash and I got in our first fight.

Well, kind of. Sometime back in the spring he told me he couldn’t picture us ever arguing. “Quaint and sweet and totally unrealistic,” I thought while smiling coyly at him.

But he’s probably right. Even if I tried my best to raise his dander, I don’t think Flash would ever get in a yelling match with me.

He’s more of an “internalize it” kind of guy. Maybe that’s why I picked him.

In our 17-year relationship, Mike and I had a rich history of verbal battles that were mostly unproductive and emotionally draining. That man LOVED verbal duals, and they could become less than diplomatic in short order. Even though we agreed on almost every subject, we managed to fight often and loudly. One of Mike’s favorite things was to call talk radio hosts and argue with them on the air.

Fast-forward about seven months from Flash’s sweet comment. It’s holiday time. Add to that baseline stress, so far this December:

Marley and Avery spent a fun, but for me, a tinged-with-sadness-and-guilt weekend as Mike’s mom Dinny and stepdad Frank came to visit for Marley’s 8th birthday. Still feel so disoriented/weird/survivor-guiltyish when my old and new worlds collide.

I’ve been screwing with way too many web pages for way too many weeks. And haven’t even been putting a small dent in my monthly bills with all of my endeavors combined.

I have had two EXPENSIVE rental house emergencies (kitchen ceiling falling on tenants heads due to major roof problems in one, copper thieves causing $5000 damage to the plumbing and heating systems in the other).

Bank of America, in all of its wisdom, has cut all of my available credit ($15,000) with which I could have paid for above listed repairs. NOT because I don’t have an excellent credit score, NOT because I’m not paying my bills, but because they say I have “sufficient debt.” I swear to God, as soon as I sell my house on 5th Avenue, every last one of my credit cards will be paid off, shredded, and I will NEVER do business with them again!

So I’m feeling, shall we say, rather edgy.

On Wednesday morning I get a last-minute phone call to do a photo assignment scheduled from 1-4pm that day. So I ask Flash if he would pick Marley and Avery up from school so I don’t have to pay for extended care.

“I’m kind of busy today,” Flash said. “And I don’t want to have to rearrange my day.” He, of course, is diligently working on repairing my rental houses.

“Kind of busy? Don’t want to rearrange your day, oh single non-custodial father???” I fume in my head. This is the story of my life!!!! If you’re self employed and a single mom, this is how you function all day, every day. I’m so damn flexible, I could win the gold medal in manipulating schedules while blindfolded with my arms tied behind my back!

But instead of saying this, I whirl away, go upstairs, dial the school, and prepare to fork out another $25 or so for this month’s childcare.

“At least Mike would have worked with me on this,” I think. We would plot and plan and bend our schedules to keep our childcare bill as low as possible.

In fact, that is probably the ONLY topic Mike and I never argued about.

A minute later, Flash appeared in my office and weakly offered to pick up the kids. “I’ll do it if you want ,” he said. “It’s your call.”

“I’ve got it covered, really, don’t worry,” I said, teeth gritted, as I waved him away so I could finish my phone conversation.

He blew me a kiss from the doorway as he left to repair my denuded-of-copper rental house.

Within 5 minutes, I called Flash, fuming with anger and frustration. Poor guy was taking the brunt of everything else that had me feeling less than serene. We talked for a while and I calmed down a bit. There really was no arguing here. Then I drove to the house he was working at and we talked again about balancing our personal needs/finances/work needs/childcare needs.

And later that evening we talked again.

We hashed out a lot of stuff, but by the end of the day, we were feeling good about ourselves and each other.

Maybe Flash is right. We’ll surely get angry at each other from time to time, but hopefully we can remain respectful and maybe even just agree to disagree sometimes. Sans argument. That is something to worth striving for.