Guess what John sprung on me this morning?

He’s getting burnt out by scuba diving. Helping with classes, working in the shop, training for AI, everything. It’s all getting to be too much, to the point where he doesn’t even want to fun dive, as evidenced by Saturday’s refusal to go, and that’s what really worries him.

Then he left for work.

Why do men always have such great timing?

Because now I’m stuck worrying about him all day.

He’s working 50+ hours in a scuba shop. We’re helping with an Open Water class right now that’s going to take all our weekend time away from us. (And since it’s a race weekend or something in Monterey, there’s no hotel room, so we’ve got to make the drive twice.) We’re planning on doing the Open Water training portion of AI on Sunday.

AND LET’S NOT FORGET THAT WE’RE THINKING OF BUYING A HOUSE AND STAYING IN THE AREA SO HE CAN CONTINUE TO WORK AND TRAIN AS AN INSTRUCTOR HERE!!!!!!

*deep breathe, deep breathe*

Anyways… I can see the “getting burnt out” thing. Work? I can’t do anything about that, except maybe suggest he take some time off. But hey, we’re doing that over Labor Day weekend, and going on a mini-vacation to San Diego…to go wreck diving.

Really, fun diving is fun, but if it’s not worth doing, we won’t do it. Granted, we’re locked into the wreck trip now, and it will be fun, and I know he’s been looking forward to it. So maybe we won’t do as much Monterey fun diving for awhile, just take it easy. Go biking or hiking or whatnot.

And then there’s classes. He hasn’t had to help with any of the class/pool portion, since he’s working in the shop, so that’s not a big deal. He hasn’t even been staying to hang out and wait for me, which kinda makes sense but kinda frustrates me a bit. I can live with that, though. After this, we don’t have another class for six weeks.

As for the ocean part, he doesn’t have to do it, either. We’re supposed to be working off our internship for DM to Greg before we accrue more debt during AI internship, but he can also be paid in cash instead of in weekend help. And I enjoy working with classes, but I’ll admit the early mornings are a pain, and it’s often somewhat thankless, costs money, and is exhausting work. Fun in some of the intangible rewards of seeing students able to actually do scuba diving, but I can also see the not-so-fun side of it all.

For the AI training, he can just push that to a back burner and let it sit there. Greg would appreciate it if we became AIs quickly, as DMs are really just glorified baby sitters, and AIs are actually useful/helpful, but I think he’d recognize that if John’s not ready, then he’s not ready.

So I told him all this.

We can put off fun diving, we can do other stuff, and he doesn’t have to help with classes or work on AI.

That doesn’t mean I’ll stop helping or working, as I do like classes, I’d like to work off my debt to Greg instead of pay it off, and I want to advance to AI status sometime soon. However, I’m a big girl, at least most of the time, and I can do that all on my own.

But then he started in on the “I don’t want you to get ahead of me” shtick.

Who ever said we weren’t competitive with one another? Gah.

So now I’m between a rock and a hard place. I’d love his help this weekend with the class, in the driving (since we’re doing it both days), with my new drysuit (which I’m still getting accustomed to), and with the class in general (we have seven students, three and a half buddy pairs, and we’ll need a DM to partner the seventh student, and other DMs to help watch the other students, so logistically his presence will make things much easier). I want to continue AI training, both to help out Greg and for myself.

But if I do all this, he’s going to go along with it all just to keep up with me, even if he’s not willing/ready/able to do it. Which means it will frustrate him, and even if he won’t blame me, I’ll feel bad.

This sucks.

I’m thinking this would be a bad time to mention to him that James F wants/needs to teach Neuro/Remo/BLS Pro (three DAN classes about diving accident management) before the end of August to keep his instructor certification current, and I told him we’d be his guinea pigs students.

GAH!

I’m not sure if this was an early morning funk due to lack of coffee, adequate sleep, and two impending 4am wake-up calls, but it may also be more than that. I’m not sure how to handle it all, and what will be best for him.

I don’t want him to burn out, but I don’t want him to quit everything all together. We had a friend who quit helping with everything for awhile, and he’s still not back into it, and in the long run I don’t think it’s helped him, as diving was his ’stress relif’.

And I’m not sure quitting’s the answer for John. Especially, though I don’t think he’s even considering it, the idea of quitting his job, because if he does, I will be very, very upset about the whole “we’re buying a house so you can stay here and work” thing. Not that I don’t want to do this, and think it’s a good idea for both of us, but it’s money we don’t really have and will involve selling our souls to a bank in order to obtain said money, so it’s not going to be the most pleasant thing ever.

Anyways, I’m worried about him. I guess we’ll see where this goes tonight when we’re both home and can talk about it.

But why, oh why, did he have to spring all this on me just before leaving this morning?

Men. Hmpf.