the patterns are intricate and beautiful. Deep hues of red and blue. Hints of tan, and green. It is a lovely rug. I have always loved it, but today it was riveting. I couldn’t pull my eyes off it. They just kept tracing the patterns, over and over. Looking for hints of images in each of the blocks. Noting one looked a bit like a face. What? what is she asking? Why is this rug so interesting. Why am I so desperately clinging to it? Avoiding even her eyes. I can’t, I can’t even bring myself to look at her. I don’t want to hear her voice, or the questions she is asking me. I am fighting in this moment to just keep myself together. To look at her causes a ripple of emotion. One I can’t stop, nor can I control. Back to the rug. If only I can focus on it harder. I can control it. I can keep it together. Somehow I can manage to not come undone. I can’t collapse. I know that. It is what they all expect. Beth will just fall flat on her face again. As she has so many times in the past. She just can’t cope. She is sick. She is weak. She is useless.

I am fighting with everything I have in me. I am trying, why doesn’t it seem enough. Why can’t I get myself together? I don’t want to fall off this cliff. I don’t understand why I can’t let them in. She was two feet away, but I wouldn’t, couldn’t let her in. It seems so great, so huge, so out of control. It only takes a small slip. So I found comfort in the rug, and the door moulding, and the clock, and the books on the shelves. Anything but her. I left her office exhausted. Exhausted from the effort of fighting with myself. I was beyond tired. Knowing I had to get myself together to get everything ready for my partner leaving tomorrow. I am just so angry. It couldn’t be worse, but that means little. She is leaving. I am stretched to the outer limits of my ability to cope and I am about to be alone. I am about to have to deal with all this shit here, the never-ending shit storm of problems that happen every single day. There isn’t a day that something doesn’t go wrong. Some days it is little crap, other days it is awful. Horses get sick, equipment breaks. It is endless. NEVER stops. That is what I am looking forward to. Or dreading. Looking forward to, makes it sound so lovely and fun. No, there is nothing fun. Nothing lovely. Just the reality of it.

I can’t even bring myself to write about the funeral. Maybe another day…