Ice Walk

 The big cat and I stare into each other's eyes, matching pain. His pupils are huge; mine are probably normal-sized, but that doesn't mean I'm not hurting. 

He's just in physical pain: bladder, urethra. Male-cat stuff. Me, ulcer stuff. But I also feel bruised all over, a virtual black eye, figurative lip split and metaphorical bruised cheek. That was Monday. After last night, I feel shredded as well. 

Tired, bruised, shredded, and I can't even fucking drink coffee or go for a run, because my stomach is so inflamed. 

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I don't exactly know how I got here, why I'm still here. I keep resetting the goalposts, moving my own boundaries. It's insidious; that's the problem. And every incident slips me further into the crevasse, just small slips, the occasional bigger drop, but certainly nothing dramatic. Little tinkling of ice shards showering down but I'm still holding, right? 

When I look back, I can't explain it. I can't see the turning point. I know his mental state is so much worse than I had realized, and it gets darker and darker. He revels in it. His self-pity can be outsized. His inability to look beyond this very moment is frustrating. His escalating tornadoes of pure darkness are bigger and bigger; they make me cry now, even if all the debris isn't raining down on me personally. I don't even want to be near it. I don't want to see it, or hear it, or stare it as it grows and grows, spiraling out of control. 

I used to be able to help redirect him. To help him shift out of the dark places and grab the rope to get back into the light. He would remind himself of various recovery aphorisms; he clung to them like a life buoy at times, no matter how fatuous they could sound, and he'd quickly pull himself back onto solid ground. 

But now he keeps walking out across the ice, slipping down into the gaps and then complaining he's freezing and stuck and doing nothing to save himself, just shaking his fist and yelling, "See? See?!?" as if it's anyone's fault but his that he's there in the first place. 

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I give the big cat his pills; he's feeling well enough this morning to resist, which is promising. It takes me three tries to get the second pill into him. As for me, I've done all the things I'm supposed to, mostly, before drinking coffee: Prilosec, a banana, some time. I grimace at the pain, but I'm hoping the GI doc will have some better answers for me later instead of just "Don't drink coffee; don't run."

Avoiding these things that used to make me feel good but are apparently bad for me is not something one complains about to an addict in recovery, sliding on the edge of relapse, though that person understands better than anything how much it fucking sucks to have to avoid things that temporarily make you feel good even when they're bad for you. Life isn't even worth living, he's said. I'm just in pain all the time without them. 

I believe him. I have no advice except to kick in your crampons, fall on your ice ax if you need to—use your tools, use your skills. You don't need to slide off the edge. And I can't stay roped up to you if you keep endangering us both. 

1-29-25

MGH (a poem)

The last time I was at MGH

my child had broken his neck

but no one at the first hospital suspected it—

they were distracted by

a more obvious and dramatic issue

and thankfully transferred him.

He recovered. 

We all did, mostly, in our own ways

and resumed life more cautiously. 

Tomorrow I go get tested

for something my own doctor missed 

or didn't consider, distracted by

(tell me if this sounds familiar)

the dramatic,

not seeing the real danger lurking

Only by luck and pain and nearly losing

my furious beloved, raging about blood draws

(but I was willing! if this is when I lose him, so be it!)

did we learn of

our own cracked vertebrae

So off I go, offering myself to their expertise again. 

And we'll recover. 

We both will, in our own ways

and resume life more cautiously.

1-30-25