Exhaustion

Going to bed relatively early again. I napped a few hours ago, and I feel that if I don't try to fall asleep again soon, I'll stay up until the wee hours of the morning and be even more drained.

I went to work in a kind of state of shock. There wasn't much that could make me smile. I kept thinking that I would get a call saying that they found his body. I imagined visiting his grave, and that scared me a lot. The idea of the people I care about dying, or myself dying at such a young age, brings the choking feeling of tears to my throat. I try not to think along those lines, but I couldn't get it out of my head. If someone had asked me what I was thinking about at work, my first answer would have been "Suicide - but not mine". That word was in my head, just like it was for Jack Torrance in The Shining. Like Danny, having the word in one's head evokes so much fear, even when one doesn't fully understand it. My stomach felt awful later - maybe it was the McDonalds food, but Case thinks it was the stress, the worry. I felt like throwing up - I've never done that under stress, but I know it can be done, and there's always a first time for every embarrassment.

Mike Purvis, one of the head folk out on the sales floor, held back a tray with a frame in it when I reached for it through the window. I gave him a weak smile, and he handed it to me, asking why I was so serious all the time. I told him that I had a lot of my mind. He told me to take some deep breaths... I don't think that would have helped, but I was a little touched by his concern. There are really no horrible people where I work... there are some that may not hit the right notes with me sometimes, but they're all caring folk, with their good days and their bad days. Also, Mike rides his motorcycle to work - I've kicked off my Tevas and left them next to his riding boots several times.

Near the end of the day, I thought - what if Cyrus was the three-headed cat? That made eerie sense to me. The time was right (morning), the bed was the one he slept on, the kitten was crying out, and I wasn't sure what to do with it when I found out how it was. I associate cats with Cyrus, since he's had four since I've known him (two have died, sadly). As for the three heads - I'm not sure, maybe because Cyrus and Cerberus (the three-headed dog guarding the Underworld) aren't horribly far apart in sound. Maybe it's just the fact that both the kitten in the man had problems with themselves that they didn't know how to fix. But Cyrus... I was never repulsed by him, even at his worst moments... at least, not the more accepted form of the word repulsion The more truthful meaning was that yes, he was pushing me away. And I felt pity for him, and confusion... but I wanted so badly to take away his despair... to fix that inner part of his heart that has become so horribly warped. I wanted to see him smile again, to not look at me with such mute agony, or to avoid my gaze completely.

In the end, I was shocked by the extent of it all. But during everything else, I was not afraid. I loved him once, remember? I was willing to accept his vulnerability, and I never, NEVER, wanted to do anything to hurt him. He was already hurting himself so much, and I just couldn't understand it. Couldn't fathom it. As dark as I've felt, as hopeless as I've felt, it's never gone as far as I saw it had gone with him. And part of me was saying, is saying, will always be saying: "You did this. You made him the way he is now. You can try to fix it all you want, but you made him like this. If you hadn't done things the way you had, he would have never despaired as he has. You're the one that twisted part of him so it couldn't be fixed."

Bullshit, my friends will say. Even Cyrus might say that. But I really don't know if I can believe any of them on this point. Maybe things would have gone badly for him, even without my presence (we'll never know), but I made things worse, in the long run. I gave him happiness, and then took it away with my thoughtlessness. I can say that I was young, that I didn't know what I was doing, that I thought I was doing what was best for me at the time... but those all sound like such weak excuses for me.

Despite all I've tried to do to set it aside, my past will always haunt me. From what I've seen today, there's no way to reconcile my past actions. The damage has been done, and nothing seems to have been able to repair it, even after five years. Maybe that bleakness will seem less horrible once I get some rest. I hope it does.

Alone in the dark,
Grety