THE VERTIGO: In Which the Run-On Sentences Take Over Once Again

I stayed home from work with THE VERTIGO this morning. My head doesn't spin and I don't feel faint but I don't have any balance.  I'm just wobbly.  I get up and it feels like I am going to fall over if I don't hold on to something.  This happened once before and I went to Urgent Care because I thought I'd had a stroke or something.  And they took it seriously enough to give me a CAT scan and all kinds of other stuff including a prescription for something really expensive that turned out to be Dramamine.  Thanks, WebMD.  I should send you the invoice.

Anyway, the point is, it's better today but I still feel wobbly. I'm trying to get it together to go in to work because my desk is messy and I have projects half-done and someone might rifle through my papers and judge.  I can't let it go and just stay in bed, even though when I called to confess that I had been careless and let myself be weak and ill, that's exactly what Assistant said to do.  

Yesterday, I was practically crying over being wobbly and not being able to do anything but lie here, practically crying over being wobbly and not being able to do anything but lie here.   Well, no, I wasn't practically crying.  I was literally crying.  (But NOT snot-crying.  There's a line.)  I'm freaked out because I feel like the world is judging everything I do because I left my home and my marriage and to an outsider it might look like I abandoned my son.  

My best friend forever, hereinafter known as BFF,  told me that I never take any time for myself and this episode is a sign that I need to take a break and just rest.   But I can't take a day off to be sick, especially with something so whackadoodle as THE VERTIGO, because I'm a Nutjob who has to take psych meds and here is one more example of everything that's wrong with me.   I can't have this!  I'm losing points in the Passive Aggressive Olympics!  

You and I both know that I am right for leaving Mr. K. because he is an alcoholic who will never get well if I keep propping him up and making it seem like everything is okay when it's not it's not it's not!   <stamps foot, pounds table, rubs stomach, pats head>.  BUT I KEEP FORGETTING.  And I think maybe there *is* something wrong with me for leaving Mr. K. and my home and not talking to Troubled any more.  I must be a horrible, unforgiving, petty, angry Nutjob with a mood disorder who can't trust her perception of reality because feelings.  

I know it probably looks like that to the rest of the world and let's not kid ourselves that is what really matters and maybe there really is a Passive Aggressive Olympics and that Mr. K. and I really are competing for who is more worthy of sympathy (him) and who is more blameable (me) and that little red underline is telling me "blameable" isn't a word but fuck that noise because it is too a word because it's what I am.  

So once again the run-on sentences have taken over and you know I do that for effect and to make you smile because goddamnit if I can't then at least someone should and I bet you are going to send me some really nice and supportive messages full of helpful suggestions and you know I love you for it but I do moderate the comments so you might not see them until I can find the little "publish" button because of the crying from the horrible guilt and fear and all the things because THE VERTIGO.

I Told You So or I'll Save You a Seat: Equally Good Titles And I Can't Decide

Her ex-husband died of pancreatitis, more specifically, organ failure as a result of pancreatitis.  Chronic; necrotizing; fatal.  In his particular case, the pancreatits was caused by decades of drinking, every night, till he got drunk, not a little high, not tipsy, but swaying and pontificating in a voice thickened with bourbon.  He died of pancreatitis and she went to the funeral with her adult children to prop her up, though she didn't really need propping.  His doctors showed up to pay their respects.  At the gravesite, she walked up to them, spoke to them, very clearly and very plainly, so that everyone could hear.  

"He said YOU said it was okay to drink."

Everyone suddenly became very quiet.  The doctors looked helplessly at one another. Turned together and walked away.

Okay, that didn't happen.  Correction, it hasn't happened yet.  But it might.  And it will be horrible.  But inside the horror will be a tiny shred of vindication.  

I told you so.  

How can you say "I told you so" to a dead man?  But "I told you so" will be the motet that will ring out loud like bells at whatever memorial service we end up having.  Presumably he will have enough time before he dies to realize that he needs to make that clear - what he wants us to do about him after he is gone because he would not help himself,

You might think I am a monster for letting this scenario play out in my head.  But it's probably more likely than another fantasy I have where he has an epiphany, goes to rehab, turns into the awesome person he might really be under all the disease and denial. That fantasy is a little scarier even than the dying one.  He goes through all that, does all that work that I've told him for so long that he needs to do, and we get to the other side and I find that I still don't like him.  I learn that I prefer to be on my own.  I don't want to reconcile.

I need him to stay sick so that I have a concrete reason to leave him and stay gone.  An understandable reason.  A forgivable reason.  Not just "she up and left on a whim one day so she could go be happy alone and on her own."  That's the story he is telling.  The sad victim.  Shaking his head and wringing his hands like the weakling that he is.  Like it matters what people think.

Fantasy, the prequel:  He has another bout of pancreatitis and wakes up in excruciating pain.  He gets up to go the bathroom.  He falls.  Hard,  And noisily.  He hits head, he passes out.  The Gamer finds him, calls me in a panic.  I'm there in seven minutes, get him to the ER.   Here we go again.  And I'm the hero.

My online friend teases me.   "That's a very stirring story, Klonnie, but you're no hero.  I saw you in your fantasy.  I saw how it really was.  You didn't go straight to the ER.  I saw you drive around the block about 27 times."
I protest.   "Hey!  I was listening to a 'finish in the driveway' song.  I couldn't pass that shit up."
We laugh and he says, "You're going to hell.  I'll save you a seat."
I mock him.  "You always know just what to say.  Now get out of my fantasy.  You're kind of ruining it."

Dear Reader, smooth your scandalized brow.  This is gallows humor.  My fantasy won't conjure these events.  You can't make things happen by wishing them so, and you know it.   If that were possible, wouldn't we have fixed all this ages ago?  

Still, can you blame me for hoping he waits till I can lose ten pounds?  I've got a black dress that hugs the curves a little too tightly right now, but give me six months and I'll be all set.  See you there.  

I'll save you a seat.