Monthly Archives: June 2011

Not how it’s supposed to be.

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Well, this is NOT how it’s supposed to be at all. I get up and go to the bathroom. I am so tired. When I come back, I see the clock. No. It’s simply not possible that I’ve been awake for a whole hour and a half. Maybe I did doze off after all.

Earlier, as I sat opposite him at the kitchen table, it was really difficult to keep my feelings in check. He looked good. He was telling me about the events that happened whilst he was there, making me laugh. I loved having him back. I had been tired and would have, normally, been slightly miffed that he didn’t come until after 11. When he arrived, I was so pleased to see him that nothing else mattered.

And so, probably, that was the problem. Either that or, by the time we got to bed, I was just over tired.

Either way, I just couldn’t sleep. He cuddled up to me and immediately, I felt itchy all over. But I couldn’t scratch or move because I was worried he wouldn’t sleep. And so I lay there. Itchy. Awake. Dying for sleep but not feeling so tired. We turned over and I cuddled him. I think he was asleep but I couldn’t be sure. Then I got up to go to the bathroom. When I came back, he must have been asleep. He cuddled up to me – but really close. We were very hot. The only way he would do this would be if he was asleep. Even if it made me feel itchy (because I couldn’t scratch, of course), I didn’t want to move. I listened to the soft snoring. It meant he was here. I didn’t want to move away from him. I guess I got to sleep.

Even if I have had only about 4 hours sleep, I don’t feel so tired. Perhaps it will hit me later?

No smoking in bed.

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It sits in the middle of one of the rugs in the hallway.

I have just woken up and it is quite dark, the weather being overcast. In my sleep-stupor, it looks like a roll of packing tape. “How the hell did he get that?”, I wonder.

I pick it up. It’s not a roll of packing tape. It’s a tin. An empty tin. A very clean, empty tin. A slightly chewed, clean, empty tin. It had elk pate until yesterday. Yesterday I finished it for lunch. I had put it in the bin. The bin is hidden behind the curtain that hangs in front of the sink. I expect to see the bin contents everywhere in the kitchen. An involuntary “Oh no!” escapes my lips. Probably followed by “bloody dog”.

As I turn into the kitchen, I see that, in fact, everything is just as it should be. The curtain is still there. There is no mess in the kitchen.

I had got up earlier in the night to find him sitting in his bed. He looked at me, almost daring me to come over. I didn’t. It seemed he was chewing a bone that he got from the toy basket. Obviously it wasn’t. It was the tin. No wonder he looked at me as if expecting me to take it from him.

Now that I’m up properly, I look in the bed. There are 5 cigarette butts. Hmm. It makes me laugh that he has managed to get the tin out without making a mess in the kitchen – no cigarette butts over the floor, just neatly in the bed. I can’t be angry but he really shouldn’t smoke in bed.

Here and there.

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He was happier last night, which was good.

I’m not so happy, though.

He’s not here. I’m not there. There’s the two or three hours distance.

It’s difficult to find interest. There’s many things I could do. You know, keep busy. Stop thinking. Stop being without or alone. Stop feeling.

A said it was stupid. I could have punched him in the face. Then, I thought, perhaps he never feels like that? That would explain a lot. In fact, it would explain everything. To never have that feeling would be much worse than having it.

He says it is looking good. There. Where he is and I am not. I look at the weather forecast for there and here. It’s not particularly good at either place. I try to tell myself that it would be dreadful being there, with the rain. And the decoration ‘in progress’. I would be in the way. We would be in the way, which is true. And we wouldn’t be able to do anything. Them for sure and me because I am, quite frankly, worse than crap at this sort of stuff. Not that anyone believes me. ‘How difficult can it be?’, they think. I know they think that. In theory it should be straight forward. But, even when I try so very hard, paint doesn’t seem to get onto the walls as much as me and the floor and other places where it should not be. And the stuff on the walls is streaked or globular or thick in places it should not be, running down. No, it doesn’t work for me.

He said, “You can come down if you want”, adding without a pause for breath, “but it will be a complete mess”. He doesn’t want me there whilst he is doing it. I will be a distraction. So will they. They, maybe, more than I. They, who demand attention from him without even demanding it. Because they are the ‘poverini’, of course. Unable to demand and by being unable to demand, demanding more and with greater urgency. At least for him.

I don’t let on that I’m not happy. After all, that would be unfair. It would be selfish. He is doing this for us. For me, he says but in reality, for the four of us. Or, maybe, mainly for him? Or, maybe, for me too. It is ‘More than Words’. And he had to have an injection for his back, last night. He ‘couldn’t move’, he said. I told him he should stop but he said that he wouldn’t. He’s very stubborn like that. It’s no good arguing with him. He won’t listen anyway or, rather, he will listen but then do what he wants. I don’t demand, I’m far too old for that!

I told him I was on holiday. He knew, of course. I just wanted him to know. So, I was being a bit selfish after all! He told me to relax and enjoy it. I said I would, even if I knew that I can’t as much since he’s there and I’m here.

So I sit here and write this. Rather than there and not. In a moment I will do something. Something else. Washing, cleaning, the dogs, sorting out English stuff, a box, some editing. Something. Or not. Not here nor there.

Damn!