Normal Is a White Frock with Six-Foot Sleeves (5/10/09 Sunday)

"It's up to you." I heard little else in my head Saturday at work, and each sub-aural utterance of Julie's Monday words clawed deeper into my craw. Monday, it seemed a level-headed assessment of responsibility, but by Friday I saw it as her hand-washing, so that it wasn't so much "It's up to you" as "Whatever--just do what you have to do. I'm outta here." What I'd accepted as compassion on her past seemed merely indulgence: "Maybe he'll finally get it this time and leave me alone." I've been thrown enough bones. I made efforts during the week to strike up conversation, but they were met with monosyllabic indifference and no eye contact. It's up to me. That was her answer Monday to my wish for things to be normal. But things are already normal for her, so what can my effort yield? I have no normal, or at least have no idea anymore what it is. The normal I would like to have is no feelings for Julie. Love is not working for me, and the bitterness is again yanking my bit till I feel ridiculed for still caring for someone who's never cared for me. But I don't care for her.

I'm having difficulty saying what I have to say. I had a lot to say after work Saturday, but there was no time to write before the kids showed up, and after putting them to bed I had no brain. I thought the emotional exhaustion would translate to the physical, but though I found sleep easily enough, I lost it at three for two hours. Then I slept till nine, fodder for the page piled to my cranium's ceiling. With the kids, I could not write. Now it's tomorrow, and I fear sleep for the premature wake-up. I'll write a little longer. Maybe at least my editor will fall asleep first.

On my hand at work Saturday morning I wrote "she knows" on my palm, but by then it was difficult to recall what I'd meant by that, my mind being propped up on caffeine crutches after three hours of REM-less sleep. St. John' wort, chamomile tea--forget it; I was a wreck, till by five I was near self-pitying tears. I said aloud, "Keep it together, Dion" as I strode to the breakroom for nothing but a walk. Turning back, I encountered Julie on her way out. She smiled and said, "See you later." There wasn't a smile in me to return. I forced out, "Okay." I sat down heavily at the backup station, guzzled my last cup of tea. God, I thought, how do people do it? How do they get through the day, pretending they have it all? or that what they don't have is inconsequential, that a job is enough, that at work there's nothing but work? It this the normal it's up to me to restore? Forget it. I'm going to bed.