Archive: Two Hundred Words

I thought I was prepared for fall. I cooked in bulk, froze in portions, and accepted the double dog-walking duty to ease JG’s first weeks of school. But these days, he comes home exhausted and dejected. The team isn’t playing well. His voice is failing him. He tells me how grateful he is that everything is done, but I sit across the table from a shell of a person.

Inside, I seethe. The weight of the slack I’m picking up pulls me down. It’s hardly gratifying when the beneficiary of my efforts is completely drained by the time I see him, and I’m snappish at the unfairness. I sit on the bed with my arms crossed, annoyed that JG asked me to turn off a light when my hands were full. Next time, I smolder, I’ll let you walk the dog and cook, but I’ll be sure to turn the light off. The only thing on my tongue is venom, and I press my lips together tightly.

I’m already tired of the high road. Today, JG and I exchange e-mails, and I write that I am still prickly, that things are hard for me, too. He gets it, I think.

I dream in first person. I don’t watch myself; I am in my body. My pulse quickens when I am fleeing, and I gasp aloud when I’m afraid.

Last night, I dreamed that JG and I were arguing about something maybe related to decor, but it all came back to money. The cold timbre of our voices, the stony silence, and that familiar tightening in my chest were eerily vivid. Eventually, JG had had enough, and he walked away in disgust. I was so angry that I picked up the closest thing to me to hurl it into the wall, but it was just a wad of plastic bags, and I flailed in my efforts to send it crashing. Immediately, I was ashamed of myself, and I let out a barbaric yawp of frustration. And I heard myself heaving deep sighs of unrest and slapping the mattress as I thrashed into wakefulness.

JG whispered, “Are you okay?”

I lingered in the fog. No, I’m not okay.

Later, I told him how I dreamed that we fought. “But we didn’t in real life,” he said. I know, but the foreboding and frustration are deep inside my bones as though we had.