January 26, 2024

A New Member of the “Lollipop” Guild

I entered into the Midnight Madness short story competition and have had a week to concoct a short story. Have I started? Not really, other than planning and plotting in my head. So, I’m finally sitting down to bang out a rough draft. In the past I have done it day of the deadline so at least this is some progress. However, to get the engine purring before I dive in, I thought I would write a blog. It feels like so much and nothing at all has happened.

My husband has definitely progressed. But I think it’s a subtle change that isn’t as obvious to it’s broader implications. For some reason he has become OBSESSED with his mouth. He has explained to us that it feels like he has a tapeworm that is trying to escape through his mouth. Like this parasite is reaching up through his esophagus to escape. We called the hospice nurse and she assured him that “that” isn’t possible. (However I was told a story from my grandmother that her mother had a tape worm and after a bite of horse radish it crawled out… but I guess that was a ‘tall tale.’)

The nurse’s suggestion was to provide us with these little “lollipop” sponges to moisten his mouth and try to break up that dried phlegm at the back of his throat. Now every 20 minutes I’m dipping in these little sponges and swabbing his gums and tongue. This isn’t that much of an ask, except for me it comes with past trauma and lots of emotional baggage.

When my mom had lost the ability to swallow and was heading toward her end, the hospice nurse provided these exact “lollipop sponges” to moisten her mouth and lips. Seeing these again has brought up the feelings attached to them. I shared my feelings with him and he assured me that they are unrelated. This is not a sign of things to come. At least not in the immediate future. Yet… aren’t they?

With ALS he will eventually lose the ability to speak, breathe and swallow on his own. It’s just a natural progression of the disease. The muscles involved in these bodily functions atrophy and he is left kept alive by machines. He has already shared that he doesn’t want that, and I do not blame him. Neither would I. So… we have entered into a new waiting game, in my mind, of whether this is a sign of that or not.

I hate all of this. I hate this for me and for him. He feels so much guilt for how much he is relying on and asking of Tony and I. And I feel bad because in the face of this new task I am overwhelmed with it’s overall meaning. So I respond by being short and cold when he asks. It appears that I’m angry at him for making the requests, when in fact I’m mad that this is happening and don’t properly know how to process this change.

It’s further made worse because I generally don’t know how to process my feelings. I never learned healthy coping mechanisms or how to unpack my feelings in a way that I could handle them without flying off the handle. My go to response for most things is anger/rage. I think it makes me appear “tough.” Yet that couldn’t be further from the truth.

January 11, 2024

Reflections in an Imaginary Basin

Long ago, in an age of innocence, I was a huge Harry Potter fan. The books called to me from the end of the Target endcap and once I got past the absurdity of the boy on a broomstick, I fell deeply in love. Of course this was before the true nature of the writer came out, and before I ever valued the lives of my community more than the belief that something (I could never understand) was weird. Yet you live long enough and you see your heroes turn into villains. It’s the curse of humanity. We are deeply flawed creatures, and unless we take efforts to grow and change we will slowly turn into twisted creatures.

I’m not saying that Rowling is a twisted creature, she is just not doing anything to stop it from happening. I guess that is the curse with riches. It corrupts.

There is a particular moment in my favorite book (The Half-blood Prince) of the seven volume series that has stuck with me. I never understood why until recently. I wanted to share it but… I feel like it does two things. One, that it is self serving and makes me sound like a martyr. Two, it makes me look like a monster. There is no space between for me. It is either one or the other.

When I shared it with the boyfriend he told me that it is normal when caring for someone. It is a lot and it weighs on you. There is only so much we can handle as caretakers.

The scene in particular is a chat that Dumbledore has with Harry prior to entering the cave to retrieve Voldemort’s locket. The headmaster tells his bright eyed student that no matter what he says, do not stop. Keep going. It’s cryptic and unnerving until we see it play out, and it lives up to that expectation. It’s when Harry feeds the poisoned concoction from the basin to Dumbledore. He begs and pleads with him to stop, but Harry pushes on because he made a promise that he would keep going.

That is how I feel. Everyday. I am pleading for this all to stop, but I made a promise with myself to keep going. I must. There is no stopping, because this is for the greater good.

While the rest of the Harry Potter saga is derivative, it does have it’s moments that truly shine. This, for me, is one of them. It (as the kids say) lives in my head rent free. Especially the disappointment in realizing that the entire endeavor was for naught. Dumbledore suffered for nothing. He died, for a decoy. Well… he died to fulfill the promise Snape made to help Draco kill him…. but… semantics.

All of this is summed up in the loss of childhood innocence. The series, the loss of a hero, and the death of my spouse. Everything ends at one point or another. Just like that basin of poison. It was only momentary… but you keep drinking “the poison” because you have to.

January 10, 2024

Truths of Escapism

I genuinely hate the horror genre. That is the one gay stereotype that seems to have skipped me. Got the rest though, so relax. I just don’t see it’s appeal. And it’s not because of the gore, I have watched a many action film with enough blood and guts to fill an oil tanker. I just don’t enjoy being stressed. The idea that people are fighting for their lives and at constant risk is not the escape I want. In fact it’s nothing like that. Films, books, comics, video games, are meant to be a break from the reality we are experiencing. Well, for most of my life it has been mostly anxiety and stress that jumping into a movie where the hero may or may not live is not something I want to indulge in.

All of this was brought about because I watched “The Fall of the House of Usher.” It was a fantastic show, but I had to hide behind my hands from some of the more graphic moments. There was only one that truly made me want to vomit, and that was in the second goddamn episode. I told myself, “this is the first one… I can’t imagine them getting tamer.” Surprisingly they did for the most part. I learned after seeing the episode that the first two were featured at some film festival and then it all clicked.

After that the gore was significantly toned down. The only one that genuinely made me uncomfortable (after the human soup) was not so much gory but psychologically unnerving. I saw far too many parallels between one of the bed bound characters and my husband. It made me feel for him moreso because of how vulnerable he is. Luckily he is in the hands of a self-proclaimed and wannabe “white knight.” (I wish I had the photo of me pretending to be Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty from when I was 2 to include.) The helplessness of the character just made me sick.

There’s a moment when the husband of this bed-bound character starts to shout “Where’s your wedding ring?” So I started doing that to my husband as a joke. He hasn’t worn his since he lost 150 lbs. It wouldn’t stay on his finger and so he took it off because he’d rather have it at home than lose it without noticing. Now only I know where the “one ring” lays hidden.

I think that’s why the river of my writing runs in the valley of adventure, only forking once to journey into the ravine of non-fiction and self-reflection. Life is scary enough, that horror just isn’t in my wheelhouse. To those that do, kudos, and good luck. I appreciate your talents, however I will not indulge because to do so only causes me anxiety.

January 9, 2024

Tonight on Breathline

I’m really worried that tonight is the night. I find myself just staring at my husband as he’s breathing. Or… struggling to breathe. The machine is doing its best pushing air into his lungs but it seems like sometimes they don’t want to accept what it has to give. His brow stitches together as though his sleeping thoughts are perplexed to this failure. My own breath catches in my chest and I wait in agony, my heartbeat thundering in my ears, until his body relents and he takes a big deep breath in. His expression and my body relaxes and we repeat the cycle.

It’s weird. I can’t stop staring at him. I’m questioning my own actions, wondering if I have overmedicated him. Although I quickly reassure myself that I gave him what he requested and what is prescribed. I tend to do that a lot… I make myself the cause of everything. The flaw. The mistake.

I hope I’m wrong in my assessment. My prediction. Mainly because I feel like today was wasted. That I didn’t get enough time with him or tell him that I love him enough.

Listen to me… I’m acting as though it’s come true. I’m going to sign off here before I say something I regret. As if I somehow spoke it into existence.