Within the seconds it took for John to tell me he was off to bed & hearing he say I'd be up shortly, he headed upstairs - and turned off the bathroom light. Leaving the second floor in complete darkness when I opened the door from the equally darkened computer studio. This in spite of my distress on previous occasions at being left in the dark.
No apology, no exclamations of "I can't believe I forgot again!" or "Sweetheart, I am so sorry." Just, "I wasn't thinking." And he wasn't thinking - of me. In the seconds that came between talking to me & heading up, the only thing that registered was he was through in the bathroom, so turn off the light.
When I asked why he turned the light off - the reason - he couldn't give it. He gave several variations of "I forgot you were in the computer studio," but he couldn't - could not - give the simple reason why he turned off the bathroom light. He turned it off because he was done with it.
It is supposed to make me feel better, knowing that it wasn't intentional, he'd just forgotten where I was. He knew I wasn't upstairs in the bedroom, but where I was didn't register. Because he was done with the light, so off it went.
The kicker was him telling me, about 10 minutes into our discussion - and it was at least an attempt on my end at reasoned discussion - "Well, I've done it right in the past."
Which I heard as "What's the big deal - so, this time I forgot & left you in complete darkness. I've done it right in the past."
All this happened 15 minutes ago. And I am not freaked out, feeling like utter nothin'. It's taken a lot of hard work to get here, but here I am. There's absolutely no sense in getting myself in a lather, because it's going to happen again. There's no protecting myself - protecting us - from it. Because John doesn't know why he does these things, doesn't have a clue how he could just have talked to me & in the time it took to go up the steps forgot I was even in the same universe, let alone in the computer studio. He was done with the light, so out it went.
I don't understand it, but it is not my issue. Lord knows, I have plenty of my own to tackle. I can't understand how someone can do something & yet have no reason why they did it. I do know that if you aren't aware of why you're doing something, there's not a hope in the world of doing it differently the next time because there's utter ignorance of what IT is.
Earlier today, I wrote about wanting to know where I begin & where I leave off. That is a helpful thought for me at this moment in time. I may be affected when this sort of thing happens, but there's not a thing in the world I can do to help assure something similar - or even identical - doesn't happen again. Am not getting my knickers in a twist, not getting my panties bunched over it. It's not my problem to solve. It feels SO good to not just feel that way in theory, but to feel it throughout my being. No anger, no frustration, no regrets. Just writing it down because it happened. And if I don't jot down the details, I'd never believe them come the morn.
Pardon if this sounds arrogant & self-satisfied, but I am so proud of getting to this place. It took a lot of hard work, but oh how it was worth it!
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