Things are devolving

After talking with a friend of mine in IM last night, I figured that it didn't make sense to let things with Suzanne sit, so I thought about what I was going to say, and then went up and told her I had to tell her something.

"I need for you to understand just how important it is that this place be secure for all of us. That's the only reason I live here, and that committment I made to the cats way predates my living here. You have to imagine how you'd feel if I did something that caused one of the rabbits to die. That's how it is with me... I just know that if I came home one night and one of the cats was dead in the road, and you were there with some helpless smile saying, 'she got out,' I would probably call the movers the next day and this would be over.

"I really need for you to take seriously that we're equals in this."

She sort of let out a sigh, said, "go to hell," and rolled back over and went to sleep.

I sat there on the edge of the bed for a minute or two, and then realized that there were things that I needed to do.

I went back up later, and she rambled on about how I was telling her to leave, how the cats were "devious little fuckers" and so it wasn't her problem if they got out. She went on about how I was "a weird one," and how "I guess you'll have to go back to dating now" and how she regretted the "thousands of dollars" she spent moving and that she'd have to spend more to move out.

I should point out at this point that she reeked of alcohol. She had had at least two martinis and there was an unfinished third downstairs next to the porch swing. Coupled with the fact she recently quit smoking again, and that she's spent the summer having her medications adjusted to counter the stress of her job and other things, and I started to realize that I had no idea if all this was the chemicals talking, or she was showing me her real self, the veneer stripped off by chemicals.

If I learned nothing from being with Nancy and Melody over the years, it has been patience, and that the things you don't say in situations like that are far more important than the things you do say. So, I just said, "we'll talk tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's too late, I'll already have a real estate agent then," she mumbled.

I watched the rest of the Red Sox game and listened as she mumbled in her sleep and coughed a lot. At some point during the night she rolled over and rubbed my shoulder in her sleep. This morning she got up and went to work with almost no word, except "who pooped on the rug?" which of course was Bert.

I guess we'll see what happens.

After a year and a half you get to where you figure a relationship has some inertia and can't be slammed to a halt by little miscommunication bullshit. Maybe I'm wrong.