Perpetually guilty

I was raised Roman Catholic. While I may have lapsed some (or a lot, depending how you look at it), I still can feel guilty with the best of them.

My dear friend Abigail told me tonight that I should just stop doing things out of guilt. My, wouldn’t that be easy! Come on, this morning I gave the naughty kittens each a small piece of cheese, simply because I felt guilty that I had given a large piece (or three) to my wonderful Glitch.

I think it comes from a desire to do everything. I don’t like not being able to accomplish things — and it’s rarely big things — I don’t feel THAT bad if I don’t finish all my work by a given deadline (I’ll feel annoyed or irritated, but not guilty). If Mandrina asks me to go to the bank for her, and I don’t have the time, mind you, I feel like I should be bringing home flowers to apologize. Which would make the fact that I didn’t go to the bank for her due to a lack of time completely ironic.

Mandrina’s knee still bothers her sometimes (I have a point I’m getting to, don’t worry — I’m not randomly changing topics just to confuse you). Sometimes it’s her own damn fault — if doing X on ice skates HURTS, don’t do it! Silly girl. However, I don’t look forward to her knee having issues — how much of it is actual pain, and how much of it is pain caused because she gets upset and tense and strains it is a complete confusion of the issue — I do believe it actually hurts, don’t get me wrong, just wondering why — it affects my scheduling, damnit!

My brother is getting married in less than a month… no, wait, a month from today. I’m the best man (ask anyone, I’m sure they’ll agree 😉 ). I still have to write a toast. I just spent over three weeks agonizing over buying plane tickets.

We just bought a house. There have been car problems, her new kitten has been sick. We just had a lovely (mostly) trip to her home town for her high school reunion. There have been legitimate expenses, and both of us are cutting back a great deal on non-essentials — there’s a wedding to pay for! And a honeymoon! And a chainsaw! (Okay, I’m just going to rent one, okay?) Mandrina basically abdicates large scale financial planning to me, as I: a) make more, b) owe more, and c) worry more.

I know her knee is going to bother her on the plane. We can’t possibly afford to fly First/Business class (although we are on the list for free day-before upgrades, if there are any). I looked into it, and any way I cut it, the tickets were just too expensive. That’s not including hotel stay or rental cars, of course. So I tried to find the most comfortable alternative. There isn’t one.

I spent three weeks agonizing over what tickets to buy. Prices went up in the meantime (except Business tickets, oddly enough). I finally bought tickets today, but I’m still not sure I did the right thing. I did the best I possibly could, given all that I had to juggle — but I still feel like shit. Mandrina’s going to have to be popping painkillers, and will likely be miserible both on the way there and the way back. Which, in turn, will contribute to both be feeling frustrated and irritable and guilty. I won’t be frustrated with her (aside from possibly her insistence on wearing high heels while her knee is bothering her), but it will probably appear that I am.

I’m not bemoaning my financial situation (hello, own a house (or the bank does)!). I just wish I could accept the fact that I did my best, and that’s all that should, and can, be expected of me. I can manage that logic on the “publicly” important things, but I just can’t do it on the “minor” items in life.