Sick Tiger cat and a nightmare

It’s been difficult for me the last few days.  Nothing unusual has happened here, just the normal invisible subtle grinding down.  The problem is that I’m not managing well to replenish or nurture myself so I won’t feel so tired and sad.

I do think so often of my cousin.  I wish I could share a picture of her, so you all could see how beautiful she is.  When I went swimming, I walked into the water halfway, but just needed to stand awhile to feel the sun warming my skin, and the small breeze move my hair.  I wondered what hopes and dreams my cousin had as she fought to live, and if and when she understood that she was leaving this earth.  I thought about my mother.  I thought about my friend that died last month.  I thought about my sister-in-law and dear friend that died several years ago.  I thought about how short life is, and how it feels like it’s slipping by.

I’ve already been snappy a few times this morning.  Twice with the same daughter.  I should probably take a five minute nap after posting, and then apologize to her.

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed Tiger (a barn cat) seemed off.  He was entirely uninterested in the sardine I offered him, which was not at all normal for him.  Later in the evening,  we had a summer storm with thunder, lightning, and rain, and he must have hidden in the barn.  After the storm passed, I found Tiger on a lawn chair up by the house.  He seemed lethargic, and he was just laying there wet and quiet.  I picked him up, wet messy fur and all, and held him close, stroked him and tried to comfort him, and brought him inside the garage entry.  I called for my husband, and he reluctantly came. 

He was already upset with me earlier last evening.  I’d asked him to help a friend over the phone with a computer issue.   Sometimes asking him to help someone else works out okay, but sometimes asking my husband for anything when he’s in a certain mood is just going to bite me.  Last night was a time he resented it.  He did it, but he was cool and resentful to me later.  He was so unpleasant that I just wanted to avoid him for the rest of the night.

Then the storm came,  everyone powered down computers, and my oldest son, two youngest daughters and I started to play a dice game.  My husband decided to join us, and I silently didn’t want him to.  After the recent conversation dealing with his resentment, I just wanted him to go away.  Standing up and walking away from the game didn’t seem like a good idea, so I tried to just go with the flow.  The kids all seemed glad that he joined the game.

It was bedtime when the cat got sick.  My husband was tired, and that’s never a good thing.  When he gets tired, it’s like having a little kid that gets tired.  You can’t reason with little kids when they’re tired, just try to get them to bed.  When my kids were little, I tried very hard to avoid ever having them out past bedtime.  When I’d see parents dragging hysterically crying toddlers around a mall or store, I’d want to say, “For pete’s sakes, get the poor kid home and into bed!”  Only I think it’s supposed to be different with adults.  In my husband’s case, his behavior gets overtly unpleasant rather quickly if he’s tired and feels he’s being put upon somehow.

Once I carried Tiger in, I called to my husband to ask him what he thought of Tiger’s condition, and put Tiger in his arms.   He set him down, and Tiger got in the litter box and had diarrhea.  Then Tiger stepped out of the box, and shook and threw up all over.  I confess that I was so worried about Tiger that I pulled out any trick I could think of.  You would have heard me telling my husband about how much Tiger loves him, how comforted Tiger must be to have him nearby when he was sick, and trying to persuade him that we should keep him inside for the night.

He was not at all happy with the gross stinky mess, and I don’t blame him, but he did the worst part of the clean up anyway, which I appreciated (and told him so).  I wondered why I felt like I needed to convince him that we needed to help Tiger, and why he initially seemed to unconcerned.  I did convince him that we should keep Tiger inside overnight, and thankfully he seems a bit better this morning.

When we finally crawled into bed, I felt alone and hopeless.  I quietly told him that it’s sad and lonely to be married to him.  I told him that I’m tired of wondering if and when he’s lying to me about something.  I told him that I hate living with his always having reasons to avoid intimacy, and the wondering if he’s secretly relieving himself. (That’s how he’s explained it before.  He’d say he had some pain ‘down there’ and did it for pain relief.)  I said that I didn’t understand why, if he behaves as though he doesn’t care about me or our relationship, that he doesn’t openly say so and give it up.  I told him I don’t understand why I can’t seem to leave him.  I almost asked him to please leave me, but I went to sleep instead.  I think he started to respond as I was falling asleep.  He said he didn’t want to give up. I didn’t care because I think his words don’t mean much to me anymore.  I’m not sure why I even said what I did to him, because I don’t think it will matter a whit.

I had a strange nightmare that woke me up early this morning.  I was working in a grocery store, and both my younger daughters were with me.  It was late evening, no customers, and dark outside.  Suddenly, some sirens starting going off, the kind of community sirens that warn of storms or disasters.  My oldest daughter showed up knocking on the glass.  She’d ridden a bike to the store.  I let her in, and she said, “Something really bad is about to happen.  We don’t have much time to prepare for it.”  I woke up as we were about to run around the store grabbing supplies to load in the car.