#183

This blog is starting to strongly resemble my apartment; empty apart from ghosts. Despite knowing that I don't need to defend this recent inability to post anything...things have been chaotic. An old, old friend dumped her fiance of five years and came to visit; my liver has barely recovered.The godson's summer vacation is almost upon me and, true to form, I had done nothing until this weekend when a sudden flurry of activity saw me repainting the hall, main bedroom, guest bedroom, and finally refitting the bathroom cabinets. Godson's mother finally called, after being unreachable for six months and leaving her son to the mercy of my dubious parenting skills. She was hysterical, sobbing, almost incoherent, it would almost have been better if she hadn't called. And of course, because it is summer and the weather has been fabulous and because I am busier than ever...the most atrocious chest infection has struck and combined with my asthma and smoking to render me incapable of walking to the front door without wheezing dramatically.

And that, solitary reader (who am I kidding, this is more like a diary) is what has driven me back to writing. Because sometimes, being ill is sort of nice. When there's someone at home who you've been thinking that you don't see enough of, drifting together after midnight to growl and snore and wrestle over the sheets, one of you always rising early and leaving the other still mumbling, curling around your impression in the mattress. Then one of you is sick, just a little, enough to wriggle your way out of work and spend the day prone on the sofa watching old childhood movies and lazily heating canned soup. Your healthier partner slips out of work early to fester on the sofa with you, catching you watching Mary Poppins and promising not to tell anyone. That's when it's almost nice to be sick. This, this is a fucking disaster.

Because, of course, this is the first time I've been sick and alone. The first time for everything hurts like hell, but after seven months it's been a while since I did anything for the first time since I lost them. It's been a long time since I was sick at all, it was her most recently. Well, not recently, it was almost a year ago now that she had the most atrocious morning sickness. And now it's my turn, except it's not the same when the flat is empty and you haven't spoken to another human being in six days and the nagging worry at the back of your mind is that this asthma attack may, in fact, be your last.

All I can think about, apart from this wretched coughing and wheezing, is that two years ago I had dengue fever (the last time I was unwell) and she was there, throughout the misery. Through shivering and headaches and bonebreaking aches and sky-high fever and IV bags. All I remember is being miserable and delirious and the feeling of her hand on my forehead, of cold cloths on my face and chest. Then, of course, just as I got out of hospital and staggered home; her cheek felt hot against mine, fever-bright eyes, and back we went to the hospital - roles reversed.

I suppose the short version is that I miss the shared misery just as much as I miss everything else.