She needs her rest

Amber and I are going through our morning routine. Whoever is up first feeds the cats and then tries to keep them from eating the other's food. (Though they often eat the same sort of food, there is nothing so delicious as kibble that does not belong to you.)

Whoever stays in bed longer makes the bed. We did not use to, but Amber came to insist upon it. "That way," she said, "even if you accomplish nothing else that day, you made your bed." I assume this is part of the philosophy she has adopted from Marie Kondo.

From habit, Amber and I share a cereal bowl, one of us eating our cereal before passing it off to the other.

On weekends that we both have off, getting dressed is a trial, as we flirt with and pester each other. We are utilitarian on workdays, at best telling the other that they look good in their outfit. (Amber wears the same uniform to work. Mine is only a little more original, though the difference is usually the color of button-up shirt under my blazer.)

I shave and check social media in case the world has burned to cinders while I was asleep.

Amber is panicked, crying, drafting an email to her professor to ask for an extension on a paper, then spiraling in anxiety and guilt. This does cut into her prep time before work.

I assure her that this situation is exactly the reason extensions on papers exist. Given the student she is, I could not imagine that her professor would even question her need.

When this soothing reason doesn't get through her malaise, I try for sarcasm. "It's not like your grandfather died or anything."

"I could have gotten the paper done before that happened," she says.

"You couldn't have known you wouldn't have the time to do it," I say. "It isn't as though you were given much advanced warning that you might have to fly down to Georgia."

The next day that we would both have off is November 16th. She needs it today. She has been working herself so hard for so long. She had a spot of poison ivy on her shoulder -- I do not know how someone gets poison ivy at this time of year, but she has managed -- that has bloomed into something fearsome, which has spread to her hand. She now must keep a glove on it whenever she is not home so that it does not spread or terrify her coworkers.

She says that the poison ivy itself is not caused by her stress, but it is surely not helped by it. Her immune system doesn't know what to do with her and seems to think making her a leper would grant her free time.

I hug her. "I'll say to you what I always say in these situations: If this were me, what would you tell me to do?"

"You aren't in school," she says, deflecting the question.

"Yes, because of things like this. I have my Master's degree and will keep teaching myself new things, but I cannot stand this extra level of pressure." Even when my job is obnoxious, I know that I leave it behind at three. I do not have to go anywhere else. I do not have to answer to a professor. I can spend the rest of my day without too much pain.

I don't know how to take care of her as much as she needs. When I mention that this has been her hardest semester, she reminds me without so many words that the last semester involved her depression at Jareth's lymphoma and euthanasia.

She has had an unenviable year, but she persists. I would like to say that it must get easier from here, but that seems to be inviting doom.

I remember vividly the stories about my father vomiting every morning when he first started a job. I was a baby then and would have no reason to remember this firsthand, but the story stuck with me. He was so fundamentally unhappy with his lot in life that he was perpetually sick. He was trapped by circumstances, without a way out. What can we expect a body to do then?

Whenever I have found myself in a situation from which I do not know a clear escape, I think of my father. He surely loved his family, but we were in small part his jailors.

Amber has a way out if she wants it. She won't take it. It is not in her nature to even allow much of a moratorium, but we have the financial means for that. Even when we first became a couple and I started my current job, I liked the idea that, after so long being barely able to take care of myself, I could take care of another person.

I would like to think that this misery is the soil in which further happiness will take root, but it doesn't seem that way in moments like these. She seems harried and increasingly despondent. She has time for little leisure or relaxation. She has had to abandon much that she might want to do. Her life is fixed to her work and schooling, allowing her almost nothing else many days. When she is home and not studying or working, she has energy for watching a few videos and little else. Taking care of the pets is a necessity for her. I do what little I can there (in that I feed and give treats to the cats and am capable of feeding the rats). There is no time in her life to decompress, to heal what is happening to her shoulder and hand. I do not know how to be there for her as much as she needs.

Soon in Xenology: Marianne.

last watched: Schitt's Creek
reading: Ella Enchanted