Rats! I'm Pondering!

And remembering. I made breakfast this morning: Pan-fried bacon,
two slices of potato bread toast with Elderberry Jelly, and a cup of
Grey. Dale went off to prep himself for work so I sat at this
beautiful, empty counter with the few tasty items. I wasn't really
hungry but food sounded good to me. You know, sometimes you don't
really /feel/ like eating, but the concept of a well-displayed
breakfast takes you back into the recesses of your mind like some
instinct? Well, that was this morning. Today it was mixed with the
idea of cooking for Dale and seeing him off to work.

Hey, I don't want to be a housewife, but I do enjoying playing one
now and then when I've got the time and desire.

So I relax into the soothing green stool-chair that Dale's mom had
gifted us and take another bite of bacon. Mm. A bit overdone, but
still crispy - so close to how I like it that I'm overjoyed.
Everything is perfect save for my appetite, which is minimal. Then I
take a sip of tea and as I set the cup down, I realize with a start
that this is the same teacup that Gracie once drank out of. I still
have the picture in a frame on my desk: Little hooded rat, head in
the cup, little hands gripping the sides, the rest of her long,
slender body anchored on the desk. It looked like she was hurling
into a toilet bowl.

A murmur of emptiness mixed with appreciation for her few years with
me, the last of which was so full of such memories.

It's funny; I don't think this feeling I've been having off and on
for the past week or two is really sadness. Part of it has been
sheer exhaustion because I hadn't been sleeping well. Now that I
think back on it, maybe it was all the caffeine - and come to think
of it, I /did/ have a couple energy drinks in the past few weeks
too. So part of it was likely related to chemical imbalances brought
on by my own hand. I know better, and I pay for such drinks every
time because inevitably, once I have one Red Bull or Sobe, I must
have another. And another. And then I stop, but it's too late, the
poison is coursing through my veins like liquid flames.

But I know there's been something bothering me, too. I am not sure
what it is. I only know it's there, a deep longing for something I
can't have, whatever that something is. So, it's not sadness, per
se. It's like a wistful sensation buried deep in a pool of stagnant
emotions. The only tie I seem to make to it is desertion.

When Dale and I were first living together, I remember one night he
left and stayed out overnight. It was planned. I knew he was going
to do this, I'd known for over a week where he'd be and why, and how
to reach him if I needed him. I knew he'd call me, too, when he
arrived, let me know he was safe. I was looking forward to it, in
fact, because it so happened that I was in need of extra space and
loved the idea of having the apartment to myself all night. I
planned to spread myself all across the bed, the covers in complete
disarray, limbs hanging anywhere they wished. I would have the sleep
of a lifetime. No more sense of being limited by the fact someone
was so near, whom I preferred not to kick or smother as I passed the
time dreaming about stairs and talking elevators.

Then he left. I hugged him and made all the usual tokens of
temporary separation. He called later and everything was good. Then
he hung up and the room suddenly held cold ghostlike tendrils of
fear. I remember how I went up to our room and how isolated and
empty the room felt. I couldn't sleep. So I went back downstairs
and huddled on the couch, seized with fear and loneliness. I felt as
if some/thing/ were in the room with me, staring at me, lusting after
the shaking form under the blanket, wanting to wrap its cold fingers
around me, kill my spirit with one small breath upon my personal
space. I prayed; I told myself I was imaging this like a small child
imagines monsters under the bed. Still, my feet stayed planted next
to my bottom, drawn up onto the couch with the rest of me lest
something grab my ankle and drag me away screaming, paralyzed with fear.

Despite the overwhelming sense of dread, though, I found myself
analyzing myself. Why was I reacting so badly? Dale was only gone
for one night. The house wasn't a scary place. It felt happy to me
most of the time, neutral the rest. No one else was there. No one
had ever attacked me in that house. For the most part, it was a safe
place, a place where my happiest memories had truly begun to manifest
themselves into a lengthy reality. So, why, then, was I so terrified
of being alone in that house?

Abandonment. It hit me with full force. Consciously, I knew that I
had not been abandoned. Dale was coming back. I knew it in my
head. But being left behind has always been such a strong fear
inside me that seeing the darkness swallow me up without Dale to be a
tangible beacon in it... well, it left behind a small child terrified
of being left alone, unable to reason things out. Never mind the
fact that I'd slept alone for several years when I lived in that big
two-bedroom apartment by myself. Never mind anything that made
sense. I was alone, physically alone, for the first time in months,
and not because /I/ had left, but because /he/ did.

This realization helped ease the fear a bit, but I still couldn't
help crying myself to sleep. Fear created the monsters lurking
outside my safe little blanket-tent, but tears of frustration came
with the dawning helplessness.

Dale has gone elsewhere overnight several times since this, and each
time, it's gotten easier. I don't fully enjoy having the place to
myself, not like I always expect to, but at least now I'm not hiding
under a blanket, terrorized by my own imagination. Still, the sense
of desertion remains, even though he's there in so many ways that for
me it's like he's not even real sometimes. That scares me, too. I
know my imagination can be vivid at times, and I know crazy people
don't usually know when they're crazy. What if I made him up? He's
too perfect. The few flaws he might have were probably thrown in by
my mind to maintain some semblance of reality, so I don't doubt what
I'm seeing. It's not working. So I ask myself: If this is indeed
real, why is it that I have so much trouble accepting it for what it
is, for enjoying every possible moment?

But then, I wonder... perhaps I'm not enjoying it as much as I could
be, but I'm certainly appreciating it far more than many people
would. The constant flux of joy mixed with a childhood fear kind of
makes me appreciate it. I take moments out of my day to burn into my
memory the images of his face - his expressions, mostly. His eyes,
shining in the moonlight or glistening with the reflection of
sunflowers and trees and water and little bunnies hopping across the
street and deer and otters and squirrels in the park and ducks eating
bread in the pond. Like Gracie in her teacup, I don't want to ever
forget these little things. Her life seemed too short even though
she lived to slowly die of age. But my 31 years have passed in the
blink of an eye, and some of my memories have already become faded
with age. I don't want to forget Dale, ever. I want to remember him
forever, so that if by some unspeakable chance he should leave
forever... let's just say that I'd rather have warm happy memories
wrap their arms around me as I cry on the couch, rather than icy
scary ones.

So what am I longing for? I still don't know. Perhaps I long for a
happier past, something on which to draw relations to my current
reality. I've grown up quickly in the last few years. Too quickly,
I think. Yet I've done it with a good deal of grace if you ask me.
But with this kind of expedited growth comes a good deal of change,
which I'm not good with anyway, and which gives me an empty
blackboard, a fresh canvas if you will. I've reconstructed my life
to my liking but I wasn't raised with the hope of keeping such
happiness. Happiness is for the damned, or it's dangled in your face
like a carrot before a horse, tempting you to keep trying, thus
perpetuating whatever plan the master has for you.

My inner spirit says, "Damn that philosophy! It isn't true!! If you
keep working inside yourself, you CAN be free!! If you keep pushing
forth, you CAN have a good attitude!!" My recent memories support
this. My observations support this. But my inner child, my inner
parent, the two most disruptive creatures within me, refuse to
believe. Sometimes it takes everything I have to convince them to
keep their traps shut while I take care of them, hoping one day
they'll see that the world isn't as scary as they think it is.

Aight, see, I woke up all relaxed and happy, having had a wonderful
TV and Spiritual Room night with Dale followed by my first night of
real, uninterrupted, nightmare-free sleep, and now I've gone and
purged words out my fingers. Where were these words when I was
suffering from the cage-beating wing syndrome? LOL

~w