Housing start

I have got a plan! I say we divorce and try again when I am well. I cannot waste your time and mine and pretend to be okay with you swinging and spending all of your time worrying about me. I say swinging because all you do is work and work has become your lover, your wife and your everlasting I do! I won't change my mind about you. The latest you.

I will though amend my plans for you. You are wrong to think that I am about fear and pain. You are also very at fault to think about being available to me without a medical degree.

I am very sick. My illness has become my life.

I have to go to various clinics for all sorts of prodding and probing, to all clinical trials because no doctor so far can say for sure what is wrong with me.

I may have cancer but cancer of what.

I see you morose and sad walking beyond your shadow and think to myself no one deserves to feel what you are feeling. Enough already!

When I met you, you used to go skydiving on weekends. Flying to place bets in casino was nothing but a dinner menu for you. Today you wear a sweater. You speak in whispers. You walk slowly. You even forgot your name. Do you even remember what the date is today? What day is it? How do you remember it is Friday and not need to experience waking up early counting the days on your fingers to avoid marching to work on a Saturday.

I see you asleep and wonder what your latest dreams are. My throat is sore.

I can barely breathe.

I too need a cane to assist me when I walk.

I too pass out and lose moments in this oppressive reality.

I too wish that you were younger and not have to remember me in the pool at our summer house where we met, for the first time. Me in a brief swim suit you in rippling muscles.

I wish I was there again. You were such a breath of fresh air. You talked about your father's trip to faraway places fighting communists and poverty like it was a war movie.

I sort of imagined myself with a marine guy rushing back in my arms after an extended period of awayness.

Me falling head over heels in his arms welcoming his faraway kisses.

And then I was brought back to reality by your request if I needed more ice tea. Ice tea I thought to myself, why ice tea?

I am in dream land and in dreamland there is no ice tea, just beer or whisky, no ice tea from what I remember!

We tried for a baby. We failed.

I tried to be a school teacher and the boy seemed to like me too much than I should be liked by a pupil, certainly not that way madam or Sir!

Well we married amid a scandal and promise to have and to hold.

I knew that if I stayed a teacher I would have compromised all that was very dear to my heart.

So I stayed at home.

I became your wife. A has been teacher who had no pupil.

You were at first very happy to return to me, at home waiting with warm dumplings.

I would sit like a well behaved pupil and watch you muffle all the dinners that I had researched for your health. How did I forget to research dinners for my health?

The dog was happy to be around us. He liked to walk to the lake and watch us hug and kiss.

We spent many afternoons gazing into each other's eyes wondering if at all there shall be an ending to our love, and where will the ending take us.

I thought it was you who was sick.

I thought I was the one letting you know that you had a headache that won't go away. I kept wondering if I was dreaming or perhaps you were dreaming for me! That

I was in pain for you.

I laughed for you all of my life.

I waited for you always.

You arrived on time as promised for me.

I could not be sick for me.

You had to get sick for me.

Anyway I was sick.

I went to see the doctor alone.

You were at work.

I was alone in a patient's gown with my back bare and exposed to the walls of the doctor's office who was going to pronounce me sick and dying before my time.

Your time I mean. It was you who had a father who once was around communists.

Did he teach you bad ways that made me sick today?

I was a good girl.

I woke up said my prayers.

I ate well.

I was healthy.

I cleaned our house and cleaned our laundry.

I called home when I had to.

I waited for your phone call at lunch time.

I also washed dishes and walked the dog if you were tired.

I knew for sure you were mine always mine.

I was yours and will forever be yours.

I got sick.

The doctor wanted more tests.

The lab wanted more specimens.

My hair fell off.

I thought to myself it must be the new dye that

I had tried thinking it was organic.

You stood still next to me hearing and reading the diagnosis as the doctor saw it then. You seemed unconcerned and not worried, so

I hoped and thought that

I must be hallucinating.

We went to bed and never talked about my illness ever again.

I knew that you were present.

I also knew that you were not cheating on me.

And that is why....

I am begging you to let me go and let us divorce each other.

let me return home to my mom

let her breastfeed me and put me together for you.

let me leave you alone so that you are not as sad as you have become.

I am tired of going to doctor's appointments.

I just want to relax.

We can touch base again when

I am well!