(no subject)

I know, bone deep, that there's a bunch of stuff from my childhood filling up brainspace that was useful then that isn't useful now, and while I mostly still believe a lot of crap about why I am how I am, some of it I've managed to overturn or at least unearth. But in addition to all the shitty things I believe about myself and my place in the world, there's that stuff that feels like it lives in the bones or limbic system.
 

Because pandemic, Light and Abundance are both working from home and they both have a lot of meetings.  Light  doesn't wear a headset and Abundance is often a very loud talker who wanders the house in search of food while also in meetings.  I know this makes me ridiculously tense, and apt to want to play peacemaker in a situation that doesn't require peace to be made.  And I'm sure if it was problematic that they could (though might not) speak directly to each other about it.   But with the exception of (probably passiveaggressively) shutting doors, I mostly just try to breathe through my discomfort, which does nothing for the anxiety, but means I manage to not manifest it in behavior. 

Light also naps on the couch.  Which is in the middle of the first floor, and pretty much the room you have to go through or be adjacent to in order to do anything.  He's pretty unfazed by being woken up and able to sleep through a variety of loud noises (including the cats and dogs insistences about being fed in the morning), but my general impulse is to be Very Quiet and to try to get Abundance to be quieter. I also try to remember that Light's a grownup and if he wanted even a modicum of quiet, he could relocate to, say, our bedroom.
 

Dad was unemployed for some of my childhood, working as a consultant for some of my childhood and working a job that required a two hour commute each way for some of my childhood.  I have two little brothers, one six years and one three years younger than me.  And when dad was unemployed or consulting, he never wanted to hear us doing anything, so it was my job to try to keep the house quiet.  I don't even remember where mom was, I suspect some of this was during the time she went back to college and some of it was when she was working and
some of it was when she just went out and gardened and left me to do what she believed oldest siblings were supposed to do.  

Dad would also often pass out lying on the floor in front of the TV shortly after dinner, and we weren't supposed to wake him and we were supposed to do that by quietly entertaining ourselves, but we were kids and it was hard to be quiet and it was almost always my fault when we weren't quiet enough, either i was the one making noise or the one who had failed to prevent noise from being made. 

So of course, this working from home thing would push every single one of those buttons, especially with two adult men, one of whom sleeps pretty much in the middle of the house.  But I think I'd forgotten being responsible for my two younger brothers in the face of implacable and often kind of cruel authority is different than not really being responsible for my two adult partners who can use their words.

I'm not sure I'll manage to remember all of this when it's happening, but it feels a little comforting to know the why.