This isn’t Kansas, Toto!

I say, I can’t breath! I can’t THINK! I can’t even sort out which way is which and I lose all sense of reality when we do this!

The hysterical rabid tone of my voice is weird to hear, as weird to me as is his twisted grimace of contempt.

I say to others, I love him, I do! He is my best friend, my partner… all I want is to be with him… only not like this. I can’t.

The desperation and tears are oddly disconnected from the words.

I am home in a weird surprised way. I wake him and tell him to come to bed.  In the pitch black storm flattened night, we both clamber into our bed, under our sheets, under our down comforter and atop our individual pillows – down for me, polyfil for him.  We automatically assume our standard positions but in the blink of a sigh we turn away, not in anger, but in respect for the broken hearts that lie between us.

I am gone again in the morning. Rushing off to help, heal, save, salvage…to empty our pockets in the never ending attempt to heal this world we live in.  He is angry again. Let down again. Abandoned again.  He is worried and fearful and anxious under the self rightious pride. 

I call, he snips, I end the call. 

He calls, I ignore the call.

He sends a cryptic text message and I choose to ignore it.  Thinking only instead, of the deep night sky, the shush of tires on the road, the cool air blowing in from the vent, and the thought of endless peace. 

I sleep very little.  I imagine he does too, based on the text message that arrived somewhere around 1am.  I replied in kind… and then tried to sleep more, fitfully dodging “thoughts” and “future” and even “tomorrow”.  The baby wakes and is sick and wailing and inconsolable.  I think that if I were in MY home, I could walk around, use the bathroom, get her some juice.  But I am not.  I am in a basement that smells faintly of cat urine and the cedar scent of a partially created wine cellar.  I am here, and not wanting to wake up my host and I’m so tired… and I can only think: blanket, pillow, sleep.  Blanket, pillow, sleep.  Blank –

In the morning he is angry to see me.  Words fly like arrows, flashing like hummingbirds, biting like mosquitos. In the face of his rage all I can see in my minds eye is the pile of clothes I’d stacked on the ironing board, the toiletries I’d gathered in the wicker tote, and the baby that was sleeping downstairs. 

I hear his words, I can almost almost almost understand them… but his twisting and sarcasm and dry wit overpower me attempts and I become stereotypical… whining, crying, weak.

He leaves.  I stay.  He calls… and I answer.  Why?

Because.

He says, “come, then. just come.”

 I say, “why? why now and not a week ago?”

He cannot answer and just says, “come”

I say I will. Of course.  And I do… getting into my car and driving to where he has driven himself and in the back of my mind I think, darn it, now there is only one car and if I leave he won’t have any way to get help if he needs it, if the kids need it.  I’m stuck

We speak tenderly and carefully, softly, hushed.  We speak in carefully formed translations of our heartbeats.  I drive, he sits.  I try not to hit the bumps but I can’t help it… and there is secret awful shameful pleasure in every single bump I blast over.

In my head I am still planning on leaving.  In my heart I want to go – but it is my obligation that makes me stay.  My standard, “what if… and I wasn’t there?” voice in my head snarking at me.  I stay.  Finally breaking down before dark time and putting on my pajamas.  I accept the beer he offers and the realization that I am staying here sinks in uncomfortably. 

Uncomfortable because I don’t really want to stay… but I’m too lazy and complacent and tired to leave.  The arguing and fussing, the faces he makes and my inexhaustable tears, the torment and trauma of it all is too much. I’ve already been there and done that… I can’t do it anymore.

I drink my beer, here at the computer. He is there, with his.  We exchange polite pleasantries as the hours pass.  Finally, oh finally… He goes to bed and I can take my first full inhale of the day.  Finally I can relax my shoulders, stop clenching my jaw, stop gnawing my nails.  Finally I can rest.

But sleep avoids me.  She darts out of reach every time I think I’ve got her in my grasp.  Yes, sleep is a woman.  Sleep, she is a bitch!  I cannot catch her because, after all, this isn’t my home.  This is unfamiliar territory.  This is ME wanting something… and not automatically caving in, and being able to find justification for my reasons, and shaking my head dismissively at myself.  Stupid lazy cow.

I cannot sleep for the whirling hurrican in my mind, the violent tornado in my heart… and the unmet deepest desire to get away is frolicking in my spirit, erasing the last vestiges of The Holy Spirit and It’s power, hiding over the pureness of my forgiveness with it’s cloudy selfishness, and yet illuminating me under a spotlight for my God to see.

This.. isn’t… my life.  This is… someone elses life. 

And then I hear the thump skweeeeeek of him getting out of bed and walking across the hardwood floors.  I hear the shshh shshh shshh of him walking on the carpeting in the hallway and the thud skweeel of his feet on the stairs and every cell in my body tightens, cringes, deflates.

He stands and stares at me.  Yep. This is my life after all.  Him standing and staring while I am doing and going.