d.

Lilly is at daycare, and they haven't called because she's been good and they haven't needed to. We're going to pick her up on the way home.

Last week, the gardener cut down all of the lilies in the backyard. They were starting to wither, but they still had color. She cut them right to the ground, leaving the planters ugly and bare. You’re supposed to leave part of the stem for the bulbs to resorb so they can bloom again.

I’ve been planting sunflowers and pumpkins but they’re still small, and I’m afraid she’s going to mistake them for weeds. She pulled a whole lavender plant up in the winter because it was a little dried out and crispy - it was still alive. I ran around last night putting tags by everything I could, but I’m nervous about what I’ll find when she leaves. And the landlord is the one who hired her and pays her, so I feel like I can’t say anything.

I can’t believe she fucking cut the lilies. The lilies that shot out of the ground unexpectedly, that left us wondering what they were. I finally figured out they were lilies and it felt like a sign. Like she was whispering, “I’m gone but I’m always with you and you won’t see me coming. Just like when we met, you didn’t expect to meet me that day but it felt like you’d always known me.”

Backpack on my back, walking down a railroad track Oh, I've been wanting to see you Eyes upon the rows of trees, an endless sea in front of me Oh, I've been longing to see you

You've been on my mind, talk about a lonely time You don't know how much I need you Once I feel the downy snow, the only home I've ever known I'll hold you close when I see you

Backpack on my back, standing on a railroad track It won't be long 'til I see you Why do I always have to leave the only one I'll ever need? Now hold me close while I breathe you

There's no way I could let you go

Just not enough, I need more Nothing seems to satisfy I said, I don't want it, I just need it To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive

Finger deep within the borderline Show me that you love me and that we belong together Relax, turn around and take my hand

I can help you change Tired moments into pleasure Say the word and we'll be well upon our way Blend and balance pain and comfort deep within you Till you will not want me any other way

Knuckle deep inside the borderline This may hurt a little but it's something you'll get used to Relax, slip away

Something kinda sad about The way that things have come to be Desensitized to everything What became of subtlety?

How can this mean anything to me If I really don't feel anything at all?

lol

When I was doing the PE for my first patient on Monday, the resident chewed me out for being “too nervous.” And I don’t know a lot about horses. I don’t know their vaccine schedule or the most common causes of colic or the normal TPR values off the top of my head. I don’t have a lot of experience describing where lesions are on their anatomy or naming the parts of their limbs. And she just kept lecturing me on “You really need to study the species on your rotations before the rotations.” Ok. 

Today I did an exam on a horse and got a low heart rate, which I thought was weird, and I was going to double check it because I thought it was low. Before I got a chance, but as I was putting on my stethoscope again, this resident asked what I got for the heart rate and I told her. She immediately said, “First of all, you should know the normal range for heart rate by now. Second, don’t just make up a number if you can’t hear the heart.” And I was confused. She kept going, “Don’t lie about your patient.”

I didn’t lie. I realized I just multiplied wrong. Dumb, but I realized it, and I would have realized it when I was writing it down or talking about it if she hadn’t accused me of lying?

Later she had me give an IV injection, which I’ve never done on a horse. I’ve never touched a horse with a needle for anything. And it was hard—a different process than a dog or a cat. My fingers didn’t know how to hold the needle. The skin was thicker than I thought. I couldn’t get in the vein in one swift, clean motion, but I wasn’t hesitating. I was pushing it with a lot of force, maybe not super efficiently, but I’ve never done this before. She reprimanded me for hesitating, taking too long, putting the horse through more pain than necessary. Like I did it on purpose. 

We had a patient this afternoon that I wasn’t even supposed to be the primary student for. The resident started her physical, and then the other student on the rotation and I each did one. When I gave the resident the discharge instructions, she freaked out on me because I didn’t get a temperature. I apologized, said I thought someone else had gotten it but I shouldn’t have assumed, I should have asked. Totally my bad. Won’t do that again, I’ll just always get the temp from now on (despite the times I’ve gone to take it and she stops me and tells me she already got it, and I’m making the horse suffer more if it keeps getting its temperature taken.) I said I was responsible for the error and I’d go back and take it if she wanted me to. And I know it’s important to get the temp on every patient. And for like ten minutes in the truck in front of everyone, she goes on to lecture me about why it’s important (I know), that I shouldn’t assume things (I know), that as the student I’m responsible for getting a temperature (I knew I had to do a PE and do the record, but she never told me that if the PE was incomplete, if get in trouble for it; for the record, she always just wants me to record her findings, not mine. Not an excuse, but trying to explain why I misunderstood, I guess.)

Anyway. Maybe other rotations are better, but every day this week I’ve come home and cried and I feel stupid and I’m learning some things, but mostly learning I maybe don’t want to be around horse people. On Monday night I had a panic attack just remembering I had to go back on Tuesday. I’m less panicked now, but still dreading every morning. 

"How much time do you spend in your memories?"

a lot.

i go through bouts of time travel, kind of.

a few nights a year, I spend a lot of time looking at this airbnb listing for a unit in the hellman building. the photographs feel the same as thsi one night in 2013. there's a safe kind of darkness in them with jewel-toned furnishings. but the waxed cement floor and the windows are the same, and i bet the air in there smells like coming in from the rain.

sometimes i sit on the patio of our house and wish i had a cigarette. i wish the yard had less mulch and more dust, that there was a pine tree and one of those rubberized metal picnic tables, that i could hear coyotes off in the distance, that there wasn't the constant noise of cars down the street, that i could drive up that dead end road and climb on top of boulders and look at the stars.

i can't stop thinking about lilly. it all happened so fast, even for hemangiosarcoma. i can't put away her water dish, but we don't fill it anymore. i can't wash the blankets we took outside and laid on that afternoon. for days, i got out of class and would just sit in my car and say her name and cry. oliver doesn't know what to do. he follows us extra closely now and leans on us as he falls asleep. but there's a spark that's missing - he loved her so, so much. he sleeps in her bed a lot of the time.

———

The house is giving me anxiety attacks. He says, “You might have to get rid of some stuff. Like a lot.”

“But…I got rid of so much before we moved.”

“You might have to get rid of more.”

“…what about you?”

———

He works from home. I’m on campus all day most days.

“If you’re so anxious, start unpacking.”

“Why can’t you unpack some stuff? Can you set up your office? Unpack those boxes?”

“Well, I don’t know where that’s going to go yet.”

“Can you unpack while I’m at school?”

“I don’t know where anything goes.”

“Me neither. We haven’t ever put anything away here.”

“Can you just do it? I’m not good at that kind of stuff. I put everything away in the wrong place. And I’m working during the day.”

I come home after my surgery at 6pm and he’s been playing PUBG all afternoon.

———

The space he told me could be my study space is now a junk pile for things. He says I have to find another space because he needs that for his office.

It was just a tiny room, almost a walk-in closet. I wanted a space that could be mine. I’m never alone anymore. He doesn’t leave the house. It’s really exhausting for me to constantly be around other humans, even him. I’m so mentally drained. I just want a couple of hours a week of true alone time.

He won’t let me have it.

Got a machinehead, it's better than the rest Green to red, machinehead

Yet despite the enormous personal overhaul to realign ambitions with your current circumstances, all those unanswered questions still hang around you like allergens. On your weaker days—when you tell yourself you've had enough, that this wasn't supposed to be your life—the questions can accumulate and rupture like embolisms, reducing you to misguided fits of blinding anger, spells of immeasurable guilt, extended bouts of debilitating sadness. But you're one of the lucky ones.

The effortlessness with which [he] falls asleep each night has become somehow inexcusable to you. A couple hours later...rather than risk waking [him], having [him] ask what's wrong, you lie still and concentrate on your breathing.

The edited memories are enough to move you into a few disappointing half-dreams but not the restful sleep that's eluded you for months. When morning comes to the window you roll carefully from the bed, walk through your small apartment, and step outside... Why is it that you always seem to feel so right at this time of morning, before the day has had a chance to happen.

And this is how it will go: Some days you'll think that maybe this is actually all there is and maybe that's not so bad. And some days that will be enough to help you endure the certain disappointments and countless absurdities while tolerating an endless accumulation of questions that will forever go unanswered. And you'll move through the days and weeks and months ahead doing what's expected of you and trying not to dwell on what you can't control, and every now and then you'll look around and no matter how much the world has exceeded or failed your expectations you'll find yourself right where you are. Right where you put yourself. Here you are.

I want to live in an open loft with a concrete floor and a fire escape. no track lighting. No carpet. 15’ tall ceilings with visible hvac and wiring. A loud, heavy front door.