I'm grateful for my husband and his courage and sense of responsibility, even if the latter is overplayed at times. I am grateful that the worst should be over, concerning the bedbug infestation. I am grateful for the few pleasant moments Matt and I had together at the coffee house before all the shit started. I'm exceedingly grateful to Isa, for letting us board our cats. (In thanks, I shall buy her dinner, and I will never, ever ask her to do this again). I'm grateful that I did not have a panic attack today, though it might have been due to painkillers, which I am grateful for whether I should be or not. I'm grateful for a pest-free, protected bed with new sheets, comforter, and pillows.
Now that I've gotten the "grateful" bit out of the way, I'm going to start bitching. Rather than type everything out in paragraph form, I am just going to use bullet points to explain how shitty today was for me and Matt.
- Last night, we had to wrangle the cats and drop them off at Isa's place. She was nice enough to let us board them while the exterminators were in.
- I had to get up at 07:00, after less than six hours of fitful sleep, immediately get dressed and bag all the rest of my clothes and bedclothes.
- The Orkin Boy (I'm not even sure if he needed to shave yet) didn't get to our place until almost 09:00.
- The Orkin Boy was supposed to call us when the treatment was finished and tell us when it was safe to go back into the house.
- Matt didn't get the message from O.B. because his cell coverage mysteriously dropped and voicemail was unavailable. Result: we wasted about half an hour.
- Matt finally gets hold of O.B. who tells us the house should be safe at around 12:00. Perfect, since we still have a couple of errands to run.
- Got waylaid at the store where I was buying new sheets by a call from my doctor's office asking me fifty-seven questions while my head was still addled from lack of sleep and growing stress.
- We went to pick up the cats at Isa's, and, after an hour of searching, came home with only three of the four. We could not find my Radar anywhere. We are pretty sure he could not have gotten out, but there are lots of hiding places in the rafters and such. As of this writing, I am still worried sick.
- My sugar crashes on the way home with three crying cats.
- The moment we pull into a drive-through to get something to eat, Matt's boss calls. So we sit there in the drive-through, stuck, not able to move forward or back up, as his boss passive-aggressively berates Matt for not being at work yet and asks him if he can be there in ten minutes (which was obviously impossible.)
- Matt gets angry, screams at the drive-through speaker, and peels out of the lot, all of which makes me more anxious.
- We still have three crying cats in the car.
- Matt drops me off home and runs to work. I want to take a nap, but before that happens, I have to put the encasements on my box spring and mattress, and make up my bed. My back is already screaming from the mad search for Radar.
- I check the mail to discover a notice that our rent is past due. Well, fuck me sideways with a plastic shoehorn. I am sorely tempted to say to my gods, "Anything else?" but I'm far too smart to ask that anymore.
- I am horribly tired, but I find myself too stressed to nap, so I write this entry instead.
All the while this was happening, Matt and I traded off blaming ourselves and reassuring each other, to the point of the ridiculous, really. I'd say "I'm sorry," and he'd say, "Don't be sorry, this isn't your fault." Thirty seconds later, Matt says, "I'm sorry." I point out how ridiculous that is and we almost get into an argument. We're both fucking exhausted. At least I have the option to take a nap; poor Matt is still at work as I write this. And we still have to find our cat.
Matt told me earlier today, with tears in his eyes, that he might look into seeing a psychiatrist. Given his family history of depression, I told him I thought it was a good idea, but not a decision to be taken lightly. I explained that once you go down the road of taking psychoactive drugs, it is very difficult to go back. That being said, I know that I am better off on my meds than off them. (I think my mother is a good example of what I could become if I didn't take my meds and keep up with therapy.)
I don't like to see Matt cry. I know it's necessary and good sometimes to let emotions out that way, but seeing him get to this point is hard for me. I'm scared that I won't be able to be strong enough for him. I'm barely strong enough for myself recently. I feel like I'm just muddling through, hiding away from the stress until I have no choice but to face it. He doesn't have a choice. He has to get up and go to work every day, no matter how he feels, to support us. He does things every day that I know I could not do, at least not yet.
I've asked my gods for help in finding Radar, which really is my biggest worry in the right-now, replacing my previous biggest worry, which is the nerve block procedure I have scheduled for this Friday afternoon. (Yeah, my reward for getting through all this bedbug crap is a needle to the spine.) I guess it's a game of perspective-shifting, or something. Why focus on Radar? Well, for one thing, he's the closest thing I have to an eldest child, and the house feels empty and sad without him. For another, the poor thing still has that cancerous lump, and I worry that he will get sick while he is lost, and there won't be anything I can do for him. So my intention is focused on Radar, right now. The gods already know about all the other stuff. I find it helpful, when doing spiritual work, to just focus on one thing at a time, and not have too many irons in the fire, so to speak. Would it be pretentious of me to ask for even more help? I know from experience that these periods of what-the-fuckery have expiration dates, and even if I don't know when it's going to end, it's helpful to know that it will get better. Since this has really just been a barrage of crazy, all I can ask for is that it end soon. Please? Pretty-please with mead and mutton on it?
Will Matt and I look back at this and say, "Hey, remember when we were really struggling, and we had bedbugs and landlord problems and your back hurt and we lost Radar? Man, that was hilarious!" Uh, no. But I hope we can soon look back at it and say, at least, that we got through it and were stronger for it. We may not look back at this and laugh, but we may look forward with hope and wisdom.
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