Ramble, ramble, ignore. : )
Ignore me, just venting.
Hubby, I love you, but you're driving me crazy.
- if I'm working on my computer, don't invite me downstairs for nothing. Did you have lunch ready? No. Was there something you needed me for? No. Was I knee-deep in plotting and writing? YES. The calling me down thing? That was an interruption.
- if your dad is visiting/repairing things for us, that's great, thank you very much. But as I don't speak Chinese and can't converse with your dad, please don't just leave the house. It is awkward.
- don't get frustrated with me when I leave to work in our bedroom, or eat in another room than you and your dad. For one thing, neither of you has cleared your crap off the kitchen table to make enough room for me to join you, and for another, your dad only speaks to you, and in Chinese, so there is no conversation for me to join, anyway. I'd really rather just leave and be by myself (in my own house) somewhere else.
- don't call me when I leave the house to go to the studio (b/c I'm sick of feeling like I'm underfoot in my own house, and am about 3 hairs away from an anxiety attack). If I'm at the studio, I'm working. You calling me and asking me to come home for supper when you STILL haven't cleared room for me to eat at the table, and have now cluttered up the tv/family room (the only other table we eat at) with construction junk, and don't even HAVE SUPPER READY FOR ME TO EAT--that is just frustrating and disruptive. I packed up everything I'd been working on at the studio to drive home to see a mess and not a damn bite to eat. Why did you call me? Couldn't you have please just left me alone? I spent all day being hungry because you and your dad needed to do things on the main floor(s) (it's a split level) of the house, and me not being able to access the kitchen; a few more hours won't kill me. I keep the studio stocked with water and a few candybars. And in the studio, I don't need to worry about being constantly interrupted by hammering or random conversations-by-yelling-in-Chinese up and down the stairs, or requests for things that you should KNOW the locations of. (The Vim is with the cleaning supplies. Sigh.)
I understand you're working hard to tidy things up too, I don't mean to make light of what you're doing, but when I can't have a conversation in my own house, when I can't get anything to eat in my own house, and when I feel like I'm underfoot like a nuisance in my own house, I am going to LEAVE my own house and go where I have control. Yes, I'm a control freak. I deal with it by not putting myself in situations where others control my environment.
I do exactly as you ask when we go visit your family in Toronto; in fact, I more or less lock myself in a bedroom and don't come out except for very short meals where I never eat enough because your family insult my weight and appearance, and where I have more than once had to put up with theft of my personal belongings because none of you can keep 'that one individual' in line. There are reasons why I literally jump at the chance to leave your family home in TO; escape from anxiety being the biggest one.
So please, when it comes to me hiding or leaving my/our own home, please just leave me be. I'm finally mostly getting along with at least your sister after 12 years (I don't see things getting better between me & your folks anymore, I just don't), and on my own time, I just want to be left alone.
Don't bug me if I'm in the studio. It is the only sanctuary I have away from the stress your family, well-intentioned or not, bring me.