I gleam. I mourn.

I am avoiding writing an essay because I'm sitting still in the quiet and every time I think for more than a second, my eyes close and I start falling asleep. I forgot what it was like not to do homework with the X-Box on in the background.

Dexter gave me quite a scare yesterday. He ate an entire 5 lb box of cornmeal which then turned to a brick in his stomach. When he drank a bunch of water, that brick began to expand, and all of the sudden my dog was a time bomb before his internal organs started exploding with fermented cornmeal gas. I rushed him to the vet, where they immediately started gastral lavage on him. After 2 hours of forcing warm water into his stomach, massaging him and then basically holding him up enough to let the stuff drain out the tube coming out of his mouth while he was under anesthesia, they thought he was safe to go home, but were worried about the possibility of "bloat" which is the condition where the stomach actually twists and the dog dies within the hour. They sent him home with 5 different meds, including a sedative to give him so he would stay still and not worry at the cathater they left coming out of his foreleg in case they had to rush him to the EVC later that night. To make it all better, at about 3:30 in the morning I was awoken by a retching noise, and Noel was violently throwing up. When I went to turn on the light, I stepped in a pile, and quickly found 5 other piles once the light was on. I spent an hour taking her outside, cleaning my carpet, and calling the EVC to ask them if I needed to bring her in. I got about 2 hours of sleep total, and that not restful. Grand total including the visit today to get her checked out and Dexter's cathater removed? $561. Yeah.

I ache, everywhere. Chase has been pretty much non stop taking care of me since Sunday. I'm glad he's such a good guy and thankful that he's been so kind. He saved Dexter's life yesterday by paying for the procedure, at a point where we had no money to use to save our dog. He's stayed here to keep an eye on me, worried about my lack of desire to continue breathing. He's taken John to Anacortes, and told him exactly what he needs to hear, which is that ne needs to be focusing on himself right now, and becoming healthy because he needs to, not because I'm riding him like a circus pony.

That being said, I told him that as of lunch today I am OFFICIALLY NOT HIS PROBLEM and he can trust that I will remain alive and now he needs to not worry about me so much, go enjoy Halloween, and hang out with his other friends. I feel bad, monopolizing so much of his time. He told me not to worry, that he's stressed out right along with me, and that family takes care of each other. I still feel bad, though. I feel bad that he is neither my husband or my boyfriend and yet is stuck doing things that would fall to someone in either one of those positions while he is doing double duty as John's best friend and trying to stay neutral.

This isn't really a fight with sides, which makes it a bit easier. There is no opposite viewpoint on either side of the aisle. John knows that our separating and possible divorce are as a result of actions he has taken, and that our trust and respect have eroded to a point where they may not recover. I know that he feels awful about that, but that doesn't mean it won't happen again. John's health and stability have to come before our marriage, and if he can be healthy and stable without me, and his happier being so, then that is a prospect I face with fear and resignation, both. I just want him to be happy and healthy, and want the same for myself, and I saw that in our marriage as it is right now, neither of those things are happening.

I have a sexy librarian costume for Halloween that I'm not wearing. I can't even think about the energy it would take to shower and try to feel pretty. I feel disgusting and misshapen and ridiculous and lumpy. I want to hide. I have avoided looking in mirrors as much as possible since Sunday. I'm still covered in coffee from work earlier, and I'm so exhausted that my eyes have huge circles under them. I can't sleep at night without John here, and if I think about his absence for more than 2 or 3 minutes I burst into tears no matter where I am, at home, at work, in a grocery store, in a restaurant, at the vet's office, in my Spanish professor's office, wherever.

I am miserable and sad and so so so very tired. This exhaustion is bone numbing and all I want is to go get my love and bring him home. I know I can't do that. I know if I do that, we'll start fighting again in a week. I know he won't get better. I know that eventually my lack of trust in him and lack of respect for him will make me resent him, and I cannot live my life hating this man.

I want him to focus on his own sanity, his health, his coping mechanisms. I want him to know he can survive on his own without me. Yet when he truly does focus solely on himself, the selfish part of me pounds and wails and aches because I can think of nothing but his soft kiss on my cheek or the way he laughs or arguing with him about Schrodinger's Cat, or the way he makes me laugh when I am angry, or the smell of him on my sheets, on my pillows. I need to wash them, and I can't. I'd give up the only thing I have right now that lets me hold a piece of him here. I feel so lost without his love to help anchor me.


I am reading Tess Gallagher for my research paper. She has a poem called "Yes" in Moon Crossing Bridge:


Now we are like that flat cone of sand
in the garden of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto
designed to appear only in moonlight.

Do you want me to mourn?
Do you want me to wear black?

Or like moonlight on whitest sand
to use your dark, to gleam, to shimmer?

I gleam. I mourn.



Off to English writing.