i went home
I've just had a very strange few days.
Saturday night I went over to my friend Andree's. I brought two six-packs and we sat at her kitchen table talking about all sorts of things for hours (bizarre dreams, tarot cards, the i ching, our families, death, alcoholism). Then her partner Hoot came home and joined us. It was fun, but I drank too much and stopped even thinking about it when I decided to sleep in their spare room.
Their spare room has a very cozy bed in it with a down comforter, and I was much warmer and more comfortable there than in this bed in K's cold little attic room. I slept like a baby for the first time in over a week and woke with a terrible hangover. A hangover completely disproportionate to the previous night's alcohol input. I think my body needed to have a meltdown, and there it was Sunday morning, melting all over the place. There were many bad things happening to my body which I will not describe. There was also a terrible, terrible headache that lasted most of the day. I stayed in bed, hoping to sleep the headache away, 'til after 11. I slept through my friends all waking and making coffee and inviting me to breakfast and offering condolences for my hangover, etc.
When they left I made myself get up. I was determined to go to CB's to pick up the books I need for my last two exams and to get some more clothes. Also, the desire to go to CB's took on a new quality in my compromised state. I wanted to go home, I wanted my wife to be there, to take care of me. My head hurt so bad, I couldn't even keep water in my stomach, I cried and cried and felt too terrible even to feel sorry for myself. I made myself sit up and put on my boots, I dragged myself to my car, got in, sat there. I called CB to see if she was home. She was. She sounded shaky when she realized it was me. I told her I was coming over. She seemed annoyed. She said "I won't be here, I'm going to work." I tried to tell her I wanted to see her, that I was sad she wouldn't be there. She asked me if I was being sincere in a tone that told me she assumed I wasn't. I suddenly felt nauseated and told her I had to go. I hung up and realized I wasn't going to be sick, I was just going to start crying again.
So I drove to her house in a terrible state. I got there and could barely stop crying long enough to get out of my car and walk in. She'd put up a x-mas tree. Her oldest son, M, was in from Colorado. I saw all this in my blurry periphery. She was standing at the sink and when she looked at me her eyes were hard. I went up and hugged her, but her arms were limp and didn't linger around me. I went to my room and lay down in my floor and kept crying and crying because that seemed to be all I could do. I must've been holding so much in, carrying so much the past few weeks, studying and studying and pushing so hard. Sunday was my day for a total meltdown. It was ok.
I lay in my floor, a temporary little wreck, and at some point CB came in to tell me she was leaving for work. She stood in the door and by then I was sitting up in the floor with little piles of tissue all around me. She must have decided to take some pity on me because she came in and knelt behind me and hugged me. She told me she missed me. I know it was hard for her because I know her most recent coping strategy is to make herself very hard and cold. I was very glad for this act of reaching out because I've been missing her quite a bit. But then she was gone. M drove her to work and I was left in the house alone.
It felt good to be home. There was a fire in the woodstove and a x-mas tree in front of the glass front door. It was all pretty lovely. I lay on the couch where CB has been sleeping (she says she can't stand to sleep in our bedroom without me). I lay where she lay and held the little beanie she's been wearing when she sleeps to stay warm. I fell asleep and woke an hour later. It was snowing. Snow was blowing sideways like in some plain state, where the wind whips the snow and beats the landscape down to nothing. CB called from her work to tell me it was snowing. When we were first dating she called me one day because it was snowing. Snow is so magical and we were so magical to each other then, our relationship so new and uncharted. That phone call has always been a favorite memory and I was glad she called from work, I knew she would.
Of course this wasn't a magical call so much as a strained and sad one. She told me I could stay the night if I didn't want to drive and I told her I wanted to stay. There was some uncomfortable negotiation around this. She said she'd been making herself hard, trying to quit "hoping" (she obviously didn't have to say for what), and she implied that my staying might set her back a little. I offered to sleep on the couch, in the bed without her, whatever she was most comfortable with, but I knew she wanted to sleep in the bed with me and I knew she would.
I slept on and off through the day, sleeping away a day I should've been studying. I tried not to worry about it. My body had just hijacked itself, it needed to rest and it forced me to take a break. I didn't protest too much. I woke, finally, around 5 and felt better. I'd finally been able to take some Tylenol around 3 and that had knocked out the headache for the most part. I got up and made myself some food, listened to NPR. It was nice. Then I took a shower. When I got out, M was back home. We had a nice long chat. M is a great guy -- a chi gung instructor and purveyor of chinese herbs. He's always bringing us these tea concoctions, blended for each of us individually -- Reishi mushroom for CB to help her slow down and Rheumania liver tonic for me, to help me speed up. Talking to M was nice. We talked about having emotional strength and how hard it is. We talked all around my relationship with CB, my leaving, but we never quite talked about it. Then he retired to the spare bedroom and I finally started studying.
At ten M went in my car to pick CB up. When she got home, we had strained conversations while she put away two large glasses of wine and her hands shook. (I watched her, feeling heartsick and worried, thinking "I just want you to be well, I just want you to be well," but with the background whisper "I can't be the person holding you together.") Finally, at 11:30 we went to bed. It was so nice to be in the bed with her. She wasn't drunk, she wasn't mean, she wasn't cold or hard. She just was. We lay curled together and I tried not to lay there summarizing our relationship in my mind. I tried to just enjoy the warmth of her, the familiarity. Then I fell asleep.
This morning it got harder. We lay in the bed a long time, pretending not to be awake, knowing that the spell would break once we were up. She knew I was planning to leave to study and I knew she would be uncomfortable, maybe regretful about letting me stay. We lingered and lingered, but finally we got up, stumbled into the kitchen, I made coffee and I think we both tried not to notice how much like normal it all felt, because it was not normal. It was the first time I'd been there like that in almost two weeks. This daily activity, taken for granted for so long, was now a special occasion, and I sensed that this engendered resentment in CB. She got harder and harder as the morning went on. She asked me at one point "Are you really leaving to study?" And later she said "I need to know. Are you moving out in February." I was so frustrated. I said "How can you ask me that? We've talked about it over and over." I was annoyed that she was making me say it again. How many times will she make me assert myself? I guess as many times as it takes until I learn whatever lesson is in it.
Finally, as I was lacing my boots and getting my things together to go, she came out with a paper bag full of clothes and her bookbag. She was shaking as she told me she had to go, couldn't stand to be there knowing I wasn't staying. She said she felt we had so much to talk about but no time, never any time ("This is why I can't stay here," I was thinking. "I have exams, I have to study, I have no time.") -- she hugged me fast, turning her head away awkwardly and as she drove off in her truck she didn't even look back at the house, her little tradition, to always stand in the window and wave, to always look back for someone to wave at as she's driving away. Such a sweet thing and so sad when it isn't there.
So I left. I dropped M off on Hawthorne and I drove to K's, got my computer and went with K to my favorite coffeeshop where I studied Business Associations for 7 hours. At 4, CB called. I saw her name on my cell phone and I hesitated before I answered. She was slurring and I imagine she'd probably been at a bar most of the day. She asked me if I'd come back and sleep there tonight. I told her I had an exam at 8:15 the next morning and needed to sleep at K's. She started crying and said "but it's closer to school from here." It was pretty heartbreaking, for a lot of reasons. I told her I needed to stay at K's because I was afraid if I slept with her I might find myself in a position where I wasn't able to sleep (a diplomatic way of saying that I was afraid she would stress me out and keep me awake all night). It got messy and we got off the phone fast. Thank god I'm able to compartmentalize. I put it all away with my phone and returned to my studies, because that's how it has to be right now.
Saturday night I went over to my friend Andree's. I brought two six-packs and we sat at her kitchen table talking about all sorts of things for hours (bizarre dreams, tarot cards, the i ching, our families, death, alcoholism). Then her partner Hoot came home and joined us. It was fun, but I drank too much and stopped even thinking about it when I decided to sleep in their spare room.
Their spare room has a very cozy bed in it with a down comforter, and I was much warmer and more comfortable there than in this bed in K's cold little attic room. I slept like a baby for the first time in over a week and woke with a terrible hangover. A hangover completely disproportionate to the previous night's alcohol input. I think my body needed to have a meltdown, and there it was Sunday morning, melting all over the place. There were many bad things happening to my body which I will not describe. There was also a terrible, terrible headache that lasted most of the day. I stayed in bed, hoping to sleep the headache away, 'til after 11. I slept through my friends all waking and making coffee and inviting me to breakfast and offering condolences for my hangover, etc.
When they left I made myself get up. I was determined to go to CB's to pick up the books I need for my last two exams and to get some more clothes. Also, the desire to go to CB's took on a new quality in my compromised state. I wanted to go home, I wanted my wife to be there, to take care of me. My head hurt so bad, I couldn't even keep water in my stomach, I cried and cried and felt too terrible even to feel sorry for myself. I made myself sit up and put on my boots, I dragged myself to my car, got in, sat there. I called CB to see if she was home. She was. She sounded shaky when she realized it was me. I told her I was coming over. She seemed annoyed. She said "I won't be here, I'm going to work." I tried to tell her I wanted to see her, that I was sad she wouldn't be there. She asked me if I was being sincere in a tone that told me she assumed I wasn't. I suddenly felt nauseated and told her I had to go. I hung up and realized I wasn't going to be sick, I was just going to start crying again.
So I drove to her house in a terrible state. I got there and could barely stop crying long enough to get out of my car and walk in. She'd put up a x-mas tree. Her oldest son, M, was in from Colorado. I saw all this in my blurry periphery. She was standing at the sink and when she looked at me her eyes were hard. I went up and hugged her, but her arms were limp and didn't linger around me. I went to my room and lay down in my floor and kept crying and crying because that seemed to be all I could do. I must've been holding so much in, carrying so much the past few weeks, studying and studying and pushing so hard. Sunday was my day for a total meltdown. It was ok.
I lay in my floor, a temporary little wreck, and at some point CB came in to tell me she was leaving for work. She stood in the door and by then I was sitting up in the floor with little piles of tissue all around me. She must have decided to take some pity on me because she came in and knelt behind me and hugged me. She told me she missed me. I know it was hard for her because I know her most recent coping strategy is to make herself very hard and cold. I was very glad for this act of reaching out because I've been missing her quite a bit. But then she was gone. M drove her to work and I was left in the house alone.
It felt good to be home. There was a fire in the woodstove and a x-mas tree in front of the glass front door. It was all pretty lovely. I lay on the couch where CB has been sleeping (she says she can't stand to sleep in our bedroom without me). I lay where she lay and held the little beanie she's been wearing when she sleeps to stay warm. I fell asleep and woke an hour later. It was snowing. Snow was blowing sideways like in some plain state, where the wind whips the snow and beats the landscape down to nothing. CB called from her work to tell me it was snowing. When we were first dating she called me one day because it was snowing. Snow is so magical and we were so magical to each other then, our relationship so new and uncharted. That phone call has always been a favorite memory and I was glad she called from work, I knew she would.
Of course this wasn't a magical call so much as a strained and sad one. She told me I could stay the night if I didn't want to drive and I told her I wanted to stay. There was some uncomfortable negotiation around this. She said she'd been making herself hard, trying to quit "hoping" (she obviously didn't have to say for what), and she implied that my staying might set her back a little. I offered to sleep on the couch, in the bed without her, whatever she was most comfortable with, but I knew she wanted to sleep in the bed with me and I knew she would.
I slept on and off through the day, sleeping away a day I should've been studying. I tried not to worry about it. My body had just hijacked itself, it needed to rest and it forced me to take a break. I didn't protest too much. I woke, finally, around 5 and felt better. I'd finally been able to take some Tylenol around 3 and that had knocked out the headache for the most part. I got up and made myself some food, listened to NPR. It was nice. Then I took a shower. When I got out, M was back home. We had a nice long chat. M is a great guy -- a chi gung instructor and purveyor of chinese herbs. He's always bringing us these tea concoctions, blended for each of us individually -- Reishi mushroom for CB to help her slow down and Rheumania liver tonic for me, to help me speed up. Talking to M was nice. We talked about having emotional strength and how hard it is. We talked all around my relationship with CB, my leaving, but we never quite talked about it. Then he retired to the spare bedroom and I finally started studying.
At ten M went in my car to pick CB up. When she got home, we had strained conversations while she put away two large glasses of wine and her hands shook. (I watched her, feeling heartsick and worried, thinking "I just want you to be well, I just want you to be well," but with the background whisper "I can't be the person holding you together.") Finally, at 11:30 we went to bed. It was so nice to be in the bed with her. She wasn't drunk, she wasn't mean, she wasn't cold or hard. She just was. We lay curled together and I tried not to lay there summarizing our relationship in my mind. I tried to just enjoy the warmth of her, the familiarity. Then I fell asleep.
This morning it got harder. We lay in the bed a long time, pretending not to be awake, knowing that the spell would break once we were up. She knew I was planning to leave to study and I knew she would be uncomfortable, maybe regretful about letting me stay. We lingered and lingered, but finally we got up, stumbled into the kitchen, I made coffee and I think we both tried not to notice how much like normal it all felt, because it was not normal. It was the first time I'd been there like that in almost two weeks. This daily activity, taken for granted for so long, was now a special occasion, and I sensed that this engendered resentment in CB. She got harder and harder as the morning went on. She asked me at one point "Are you really leaving to study?" And later she said "I need to know. Are you moving out in February." I was so frustrated. I said "How can you ask me that? We've talked about it over and over." I was annoyed that she was making me say it again. How many times will she make me assert myself? I guess as many times as it takes until I learn whatever lesson is in it.
Finally, as I was lacing my boots and getting my things together to go, she came out with a paper bag full of clothes and her bookbag. She was shaking as she told me she had to go, couldn't stand to be there knowing I wasn't staying. She said she felt we had so much to talk about but no time, never any time ("This is why I can't stay here," I was thinking. "I have exams, I have to study, I have no time.") -- she hugged me fast, turning her head away awkwardly and as she drove off in her truck she didn't even look back at the house, her little tradition, to always stand in the window and wave, to always look back for someone to wave at as she's driving away. Such a sweet thing and so sad when it isn't there.
So I left. I dropped M off on Hawthorne and I drove to K's, got my computer and went with K to my favorite coffeeshop where I studied Business Associations for 7 hours. At 4, CB called. I saw her name on my cell phone and I hesitated before I answered. She was slurring and I imagine she'd probably been at a bar most of the day. She asked me if I'd come back and sleep there tonight. I told her I had an exam at 8:15 the next morning and needed to sleep at K's. She started crying and said "but it's closer to school from here." It was pretty heartbreaking, for a lot of reasons. I told her I needed to stay at K's because I was afraid if I slept with her I might find myself in a position where I wasn't able to sleep (a diplomatic way of saying that I was afraid she would stress me out and keep me awake all night). It got messy and we got off the phone fast. Thank god I'm able to compartmentalize. I put it all away with my phone and returned to my studies, because that's how it has to be right now.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 8:59 PM
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