Albuquerque living part 2: Road to recovery?

[Albuquerque]

Journaling,

Just got back from a weekend in Vegas with D. We had a great time. On Friday before I left, H called me. He apologized for the previous day and said what he did was douchebaggy. After discussion, he realized that he had made some assumptions about me and D traveling down there (he assumed we would only be scuba diving) and therefore he didn't see a point for us to go since she couldn't do so. I explained that I had said that we would find something else to do. He saw the evidence in the texts and said that he guesses we need to do a better job of communicating. True.

Anyhow, I talked with him for about an hour and felt better afterwards. I told him again that we were going to Vegas and he was surprised again because he thought I was joking previously. But all in all, it was a good conversation and we got caught up on stuff.

That evening, I let D in on the news and she seemed freaked out by the spur of the moment trip. But she seemed pleased. We arrived very very late Friday night and went to bed. In the morning, we went and found some breakfast. During breakfast, I received a text from H. He had done his first dive of his trip and unfortunately had popped an eardrum. Unfortunately, this is not the first time he's done so. That pretty much ruled out any future dives for him. Then while getting out of the boat, the captains chair fell and hit him on the head. Then he locked his keys in the car. Then he sent me a picture of a giant blister on his foot. Needless to say, I felt bad that D and I were having a great time cruising the strip while getting these reports.

The following day, D and I visited Hoover Dam. I admit, I felt guilty doing so since H has never been there. But again, I realized that for too long, I have often "waited" for H so that we could do stuff together, only to never have that stuff happen. So I decided, we were close, I was taking D to see the dam. We had a great time and the weather was divine. All in all, it was a good trip. But H didn't sound like he had too good of a time. He just did a lot of bar hopping with his friends but was battling the pain of the ruptured ear drum so it wasn't as fun as it could've been. To his credit though, he seemed supportive about all the fun things we were doing and didn't seem to take it personally that he wasn't there. Perhaps he felt that way but just didn't act that way, I don't know. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

D and I got back home last night. This morning, we both had a bad morning. I gave my old 18 year old cat a new type of medication this morning. He took it fine and went into D's room to take his 20 hour nap. She came out and told me that it appeared he had a seizure. When I went into the room, he was having agonal breathing (something they do after death). I went and got my stethoscope and confirmed my fears. He had died. Unlike previous times a pet has died, D cried. She has typically held her emotions back so in a way, it was good to see. She had band practice this morning before school but we were too broken up to hustle to make that. She said her goodbyes and I took her to school. I texted H to have him call me when he awoke. The cat was originally my H's cat. I went with him to the pound to adopt him several years before we were even married. H called while driving D to school and I gave him the sad news. He was sad but focused on the positives. He reminded me that he had a good life. We could've lost him when he got into rat poison one time. And I removed a very malignant tumor from him that SHOULD have spread but didn't, many many years ago. And he's right. He had a good life. I don't BLAME the medication, even though it probably caused this. Side effects can happen and he may have had a silent metabolic illness that I hadn't detected recently. H talked to D and they plan on putting together a montage of cat photos along with music. I like the idea. Celebrate his life.

So life is slowly getting back to normal (kind of). I will get back to work at the end of this week. H is leaving the FL Keys today and will be back this evening. He made it sound like he was coming here, especially given the fact that we need to bury our cat. I don't know what the future holds now that the conference is over and he has claimed to be moving back for good. When I think about me going to work and coming home and having H here, I admit, it seems weird now. It's strange how you can get used to something you never wanted. H still has a lot of work to do and the x-OW issue is still something I need to deal with. In fact, when H posted on FB about losing our cat, the first person to comment was x-OW. Kind of NOT the person I want to see sympathy from. As always, I'll continue to take this one day at a time.