synergy

Nothing Behind the Eyes

K has been struggling with the shortening days and the dark when she rises in the morning. Added to that difficulty, she's continuing to have problems with her job and found out today that the position that she had hoped to get had been cut in the budget process. She also is contending with my PMS, which is always a trying time for her.

Monday she didn't make it to the office. She was up and ready to go when the pump a porta-potty truck showed up at 6:30 am to pump the toilets at the construction site across the street. Whatever was going on with her, this flipped the switch. She went ballistic and actually went as far as to go out and yell at the truck operator. According to city regulation, commercial activities are not allowed to begin until 7 am. That outburst ruined K for the rest of the day. Before I left for my breakfast meeting, she had actually managed to crack a smile, but it was too much for her to make it in.

The frightening part for me was that I looked at K across the dining room table last night as we ate dinner. I couldn't see her in her eyes. They were blank as if whoever lived behind them had died. Usually, I use the lines on her face to gauge her level of pain, but this time the lines weren't telling the entire story. She told me that she had hidden herself to escape the pain. It probably also related to the 1.5 mg of xanax that she had taken to get through the day.

Fortunately, this morning things had improved again. K felt well enough to get to the office, where she was promptly told that her position had been cut in the budget. She's still not going to lose her job, but the permanent job that she had hoped for will probably not materialize. Her manager is going to fight for the positions, so there is some hope. By this evening, she did seem to be okay. She's upstairs watching a movie while I am trying to get a fire lit on a cold, wet night. The fireplace is winning the battle and the fire is barely hanging on.

I don't know what to think about K's job situation. It is a great disappointment that it appears is if a permanent position will not materialize as quickly as we had thought. K's been going through this reorg for 10 months and is fairly sick of it. It doesn't help that my office is also in the middle of reorganizing and despite my position being secure, it is no way clear where I will be working or what I will be doing in the near future.

Back to some happy news, I had a wonderful time in Germany. My German returned more easily than I had expected. I had the opportunity to visit with friends, relax, go hiking, visit a wine festival and not worry about any of the day to day things. When K picked me up from the airport, I didn't want to hear about the neighborhood or the basement. I wasn't ready. I think it took 36 hours before I was even willing to begin thinking about such things again.

My fire seems to be doing better. One reason for the fire is that we have no heat in our house. Our boiler was ruined by the basement boys in the spring and we are negotiating with the contractors for them to replace it. But in the meantime, our house is hovering around 60 degrees or so. The only saving grace is that the heating bill is going to be soooooo high this winter that any time we aren't using natural gas is good. Tomorrow, we are planning to go and purchase a second space heater of the larger variety.

I'm doing all right. I have my endoscopy scheduled on Monday. They are going to snake my stomach in hopes of finding whatever has been causing me intermittent stomach pain for the past 2 years. I'm assuming it is stress and nothing more serious. Hope I am right.

posted by synergy @ 6:04 PM