Changing the standard from "doesn't work"

At 62, stunned to realize how much "doesn't work" is still my default, my core expectation for everything, except my marriage.  And it's my relationship with John that provides the stable, firm ground from which it's safe to see the muck that continues to limit my life view.

We've been without working toilets for over six months, maybe longer.  First, the upstairs one conked out.  Then the den.  Then the second floor.  We made do, worked around, were inconvenienced but putted.  And that didn't seem alarming to either of us.  No idea what was behind John's lack of alarm, but know that mine is firmly rooted in things NOT working, even - especially - the most basic.  

It's why I now see a counselor.  Because the warp & woof imbeddedness of it is beyond the normal person's ken.  It goes deep, deeper than I can fully realize.

Yesterday, driving up Strasburg/Goshen Road, filled with so many memories of wonderful meanders over the years with my family, got to thinking about Peter, whom I indelibly associate with that neck of the woods.  Friends, even my very best, can't fathom that he really & truly doesn't experience me as a living, breathing entity.  I don't irk aggravate exasperate my oldest brother - to do any of those, I'd have to first exist to him.  And I don't.  My guess is that I never have.  What's disturbing to me isn't his UNexperience of me, because at some level it has always been thus.  What disturbs me is that it's NOT disturbing.  Just ingrained.  

Oh, my friends will counter, of course you exist to him.  No, I really don't, although that remarkable reality never hit me until he was so shocked that I'd question why he didn't offer me an apology for past wrongs/pledge to atone, as he did to Mom & Mim.  

When you grow up with the experience of your oldest brother simply not seeing you, a lot of weird expectations get woven into the fabric of your life.  

Of course, when the problems with the toilets first happened, we were really & truly NOT in a place where we could have afforded a solution, even a minor one.  Working around the problem became our normal, which never seemed abnormal - at least for me - because working around a major issue rather than addressing & resolving was commonplace in my family, in my personal experience.

Working on it.  The situation with the faucet & the toilets underscore how susceptible to this funky, unconstructive dynamic I still am.  And it looks like there is no immediate solution to our toilet problems, since they require a master plumber, which we really can't afford.  Just don't have the spare $ - taxes & my fall conferences/workshops have got to take priority, even if it means living in an absurd way, whatever that might be.

Some might look at all this as unbearable - I experience it as stuff to work through, get past, put behind us on the road to all that it's blocked up to now!