Two Lucky

Week in review 

In New York, Rusty and I were having a rough time together.

In the last couple of weeks, we barely spoke to each other, and when we did, it was rarely pleasant. Much of it had to do with the stress and pain that had built up in recent months, particularly during his last IL-2 therapy.

When it was over, I felt tired, depleted, and loveless. He felt cheated, sick, and abandoned. We were both angry with ourselves, and with each other.

So while a vacation away from New York seemed like the perfect solution to two stretched souls, it also seemed to me the worst thing we could do for our relationship.

I needed to be away from him, and all that he had come to represent in recent weeks: medical appointments, pills, IV tubes… to be on my own was what made sense to me. I sought decompression, craved solitude. In part, I knew I had to recover my identity other than a cancer patient´s care-giver. Going on a trip together, where I would still have to dole out his pills, watch for his safety, and keep emergency numbers handy; in other words, continue to be so close to the cancer, didn´t seem like it would help.

We have been away for almost a week now. Nothing, and everything, has changed. Nothing, because I know that deep down, I am still angry and terrified. Everything, because I have recovered my strength; I no longer feel tired. It is as if the world had suddenly righted itself, found its gravity again.

The turn was immediate, unexpected, and perfect in its ordinariness.

We were sitting in the lounge, on separate day beds, each with our own books. He was reading Sarah Dunant´s The Birth of Venus, and I On Writing Well by William Zinsser. After an hour, Rusty asked me to come sit by him. I agreed. It was not long after that we were both lying in a comfortable tangle of limbs - his legs stretched over mine, my arms wrapped around his thighs.

Resting so, we continued to read, my head slack on his stomach as his fingers caressed the side of my head. Once or twice, he catches me biting my nails, and smacks me disapprovingly, but gently. We continue to read like this for two uninterrupted, beatific hours.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 6:44 pm and is filed under New York, Couplehood, Week in review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.