2018.04.16

Birthdays are the enemy. Every reminder of passing time is a cruel and remorseless assault. I recently turned 46 years old; in two months, MW will be 50. She'll be dead before 65. That's fact. It's likely to happen sooner, but it definitely won't be later.

Fifteen years, max.

Happy Fucking Birthday to me!

***

How did I celebrate? Same ol'. MW woke me up in the middle of the night to ask if my body ever moves when I'm trying to go to sleep.

Of course it does. Happens to everybody.

Then we spent the day spinning our wheels about the home renovations. Close to one thousand dollars gone so far just getting estimates, etc., but MW will not commit to any design, contractor or schedule. This will go on for a very long time.

Maybe until the money runs out.

***

Although, today we may be back to the "have to move" idea. A neighbor parked in front of our mailbox today and, when MW went out to confront him, it turned into a bit of an ordeal. Conversations with MW tend to spiral. I wasn't there; but MW has been calling me at work to let me know that we're probably going to have to move instead of renovate.

Okay. Good. That will simplify things, I guess. Until one of our new neighbors parks in front of our mailbox....

***

Here again, in tallying up my sins, I can add that, by shielding MW to the extent I do, I'm setting her up to take a hard fall. If I'm not around to steer her right; she'll swerve. Talking with her is strange at best; usually offensive, and frequently incoherent. As an example, during one of her protracted rants about what was wrong with the world, she started rallying against her Indian community and how they exclude everyone who isn't "perfect"; the point being, when her mother got sick, nobody wanted to have anything to do with them. True enough. Then she went on to explain that, had her mother not gotten sick, MW could have married an Indian boy, had kids, and been a part of that community. But because of the illness, she had to marry a white guy so she got cut out completely.

And that wasn't fair.

Well, okay. No offense taken. But you see where this kind of.... tone-deaf honesty? could be considered impolite. When we're out together, I often have to gently nudge her away from racist, sexists, and sometimes just weird topics of conversation.

But when I'm not around, she's getting into trouble.

***

Drinking hasn't worked out so well. Depression over my birthday piled on top of everything else (and it's a substantial heap!) had me sucking down the vodka with a desperate sickness.

I drank to hurt myself. And, surprise! I hurt myself.

So whereas MW has a hard-stop at fifteen years; I'm chopping up the asphalt on my own personal highway to hell with broken bottles.

She may outlast me. She very well might.

And that would be terrible for her, because she has no-one else. Literally there is not a single soul on this planet that will take care of her if (once) I'm gone.

I suppose, if I love her, I should stop drinking. I suppose I should.