All By Myself

My wife is gone on a trip. She won't be back until Sunday.

She left early this morning; it was a long bus trip on which she's a chaperone so she had to get to the loading area early enough for their "bag check" and load things on to the bus. It kind of sucks that her ex-husband, mental issues and all, is one of the bus drivers for the trip. I didn't like it too much but there wasn't really all that much that we could do other than my wife requesting that she's not assigned to ride the bus that the buffoon was driving lest he decide to make a big show of driving off into a field to show how her presence affects him somehow.

After she left the daughter got out of bed and got around then got the little guy dressed for his trip to the babysitter's. While my wife was getting around this morning he decided he wanted to come into the bedroom and lay down with Daddy for a few minutes; that seemed like there was no harm in that so my wife rearranged some things and made room for him to lay down to catch another hour of snooze.

The daughter got him up, managed to convince him to try going potty, then got him all dressed up. Somewhere in there I'm assuming she found her birthday card (making her officially 17) but she never said anything to me. Her boyfriend arrived to take them to daycare, the little guy said goodbye to Daddy and daughter let the dog back in and they left. They soon reappeared in the driveway at 7:36 because she had forgotten to take her homework. Then they left and I began my own day.

By starting my own day, I mean I realized the pillows and blankets normally on my right side in the bed that I used to help support and prop myself upright to get out of the bed since my abdominal muscles aren't working properly weren't there any more; my wife moved them when she made room for Lil' Dude to lay down. I had a few moments of panic set in, alone in the house, little mental alarm blaring that I myself had to use the potty, staring at the ceiling, a dull aching throb reminding me that the painkillers had long ago run out of my system and wondering how I was going to get up now.

The realization of how ridiculous it would look to be found eight hours later laying in bed unable to get up prompted me to redouble my efforts and push through the ache to get my body upright. I'm glad to say that seeing as I'm typing this at the computer, I made it.

I came out to the living room, managed to chop up my horsepills and have some milk and Jell-O and such for food. My father came up for a few minutes to tell me that the tire he took for repair can't be repaired. Apparently the layers of the tire were separating; that made it leak air, and fortunately for my wife the air just hissed out instead of the tire disintegrating at highway speed. I told him the best thing to do would be to take one of the winter-treads we were going to use in the fall, mount that, and we'd get that swapped on to the family vehicle later.

Of course since someone had come up to visit, the dog thought there was an invisible canine-edible monster lurking outside the house and got worked up. My father was already gone and she continued to run from one end of the house to the other, peering out windows and yapping at invisible pixies. Then she ran up and jumped on me. Her 80 pound frame hit me just off-center in the stomach as I sat on the couch and I could only thank the invisible friends in the air that she hit me with two paws and off center.

The pain was immediate and paralyzed me for a few brief seconds, then the scream came. It poured out of me. Unintelligible, dripping with venom, and loud, the scream apparently spooked the dog, sending her backwards as if physically pushed. When my lungs refilled with air I managed an actual non-reflexive yell that had actual dictionary-residing words in it; the selection included terms of what I'd like to do to her neck and then to the necks of her parents and their parents followed by a command that translated to, "Get out of my sight forever".

The dog calmed down a bit and I was tenderly poking my side and checking my incision for any additional bleeding. Finding none I finally started to relax and take comfort in the fact that my own painkillers were starting to finally take hold.

I stared into the empty house now very much aware that if something bad happened I'd be at least 20 minutes from getting help; I was very much on my own here. Scary.

Right now I think of this as a day where everyone is at work. It hasn't quite sunk in yet that my wife is gone. My stepdaughter, and eventually my son, will return tonight but it won't be the same. I'm consoled by the thought that at least she's having fun out there but I still miss her presence here.

I'm adapting to these changes that have come my way and continuing to heal. My daughter is really good about helping with her younger brother and while she didn't acknowledge her birthday card this morning at all she did manage to get her brother to daycare in one piece and she'll have a plate full getting some chores done.

Life happens. Whether you want it to or not, whether you like what is happening or not, life will continue to happen and you just have to weather it. And watch out for 80 pound dogs trying to eviscerate you when she knows everyone else in the household is gone.