Yes, I did get the job I was wondering and worrying about yesterday. Yay! The pay per minute isn't as high as I could like, but it's a job, yo. A job doing something I'm good at, something I enjoy, something that feeds my soul. A paying job.
Furthermore, a job that has a schedule. This is bliss, for me. I need the outside structure that a schedule provides; without the schedule, I have a strong tendency to remain at rest. Inertia, it's not just for objects.
We talked about how she asked me to stay through part of September, and that she had used my feelings for the kids to get me to agree to it. She does that, uses the way people feel about children to manipulate them into doing things, either for her or for the kids. I really dislike being manipulated, but in the heat of the moment, emotionally engaged, I agreed to stay.
On the one hand, yeah, it's for the kids. On the other hand, it's also for her. On the third hand, it gets very complicated. I agreed to stay longer, but the debt will continue to increase during that time. One major reason for me to move is to stop the debt from growing.
There will never be a good time for me to move. The kids will never accept it easily, it will disrupt their lives, they will be sad. I will be sad, so will she. Dragging it out, prolonging it... doesn't make it easier and it doesn't make the pain go away.
I'll keep to what I agreed to, (tho I'm feeling more and more resentful of that extra two weeks), but no longer. I cannot, will not, bend more. She'll most likely ask me to stay longer, to help out more, to not move just yet. She'll cite the stress the kids are under, the stress and upset my moving will bring them. Those will be valid points.
But.
The kids will eventually adjust. The pain will lesson, they'll learn how to live without me always here. They are stronger than she thinks, more adaptable.
She doesn't need me here, either. She's stronger than she thinks.
I can't keep taking care of her at the expense of taking care of myself. I have been, I know. I put an awful lot of what is important to me on the back burner, sidelined a lot of my central identity when I moved in here. It's time for me to get that back.
I have changes I need to make, and the more I wait to do what I need to do for myself, the more I resent being here, the more I chafe and itch to be in a new situation. One extension past the thirty days I agree to give, no more.
This is my line in the sand. Now I hope I can defend it, stick to it, not bend further.
And I reserve the right to change my mind about the extension. I kinda feel... the debt keeps growing, and I don't like the idea that I did her a favor by agreeing to stay longer, and the debt will still accrue through that extra time.
This is the razor edge I'm sitting on now.
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