Sunday, September 10, 2006

too strong for too long

Wake up this morning and the inscision in my leg where the lump was removed throbs with the beginning of an infection, my lungs really feel the 2 cigarettes I smoked at the party last night (after watching the very nice Transamerica), a party full of nice clean-cut ambitious and very young people, utterly responsible, coupled up and with their entire future just waiting for them it seems. Still I did my best to blend in, and on the surface I don't think I appeared all that different (one of the advantages of being a foriegner, and from the exotic Mid East as well, is that the normal rules don't apply to me anyway). First thing I think about this morning is my dog. She was a part of me for 18 years of my life. But I am unable to cry. I have squeezed out a few tears here and there over the past months, but I don't think since my diagnosis that I actually cried. So I pour water on my leg yesterday when showering before leaving to go out with P., I mean I don't cover my leg as well as I should have and don't take enough care (and also am running late). Not intentionally, but thinking this morning it's not all that different from the cutting I used to do as a teen to release some of the pain and fear and confusion. But hoefully any infection will sort itself out without a doctor, I really hope so.

Cycling home last night the same theme reemerges between us, that I am too tired to describe now. But I know my fatigue is an escape. That he is afraid he would hurt me, fears responsibility, my vulnerability, and I say that he puts me in the place of the one who loves, wants, needs more always. He says that he thinks that I may have decided that he is the man of my life, and he isn't sure yet. I say that I haven't, and I don't think like that, which is partially true. I mean, I haven't decided anything, but I feel it in my stomach, I know, and that is a a scarier feeling for me than he could imagine, but what can I do, leave him because he is "the one" (and yeah I know there is no such thing, I know love is a state of mind and a choice taken on a daily basis, I know all this, and yet... I am in love with this guy, I need this guy like I have never needed anybody. I can live without him and survive on my own and most probabaly find someone else, too, or at least find satisfaction on my life, regardless, but, I want him). I defend myself quite nicely, not aggressively. I make him laugh. I make him love me. Show him what he is doing, calm him down (there is no te quiero and te amo in English, nor in Hebrew, and what am I supposed to say: I like you?; I have been showing my emotions, indeed feeling my emotions, to others more and more). And that's scary this morning too, the way he is calm and whisteling in the kitchen as he makes breakfast. And the beautiful fresh automn Sunday outside, heartbreaking in the way fall always is, reminding me of my childhood, of playing outside alone and waiting for the heavy rain clouds to accumulate, talking to trees and to earth and the ants I tortured, looking out later from the school windows onto the sand dunes and eucaliptus trees and highway and knowing I will be out there soon, alone, under the sky.

1 comment:

orangejuice said...

"...I know love is a state of mind and a choice taken on a daily basis..."

No! Love is more than that! It has to be. Because if it isn't then there's just no hope see? Love is what wakes us up in the morning, what makes us want and need and feel. Its our humanity, our essence. It has to be. We have to refuse to live as if it did not exist.

Well I'm sure what I just said would work better if we replaced "love" with "jack daniels" ....