This morning, when I stepped out of the shower, suddenly there was something wrong. My Owner was sitting in the living room with little S on her lap giving her her bottle, but her face was wooden, her voice was flat, her whole demeanor had changed. Everything was ok when we got up, we even had time to snuggle a bit before the little one came in to our bedroom, but now, apparently, something was not ok anymore.
I hate when that happen! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! I'm not good with mood swings, I'm not good with moods generally, and I suck at it when it comes to my Owner. I immediately tensed up, simply from looking at her and hearing the tone of her voice, and went to the kitchen, and ended up standing at the counter not knowing that to do.
Was it me? Had I done something wrong? Was it little S? Had something else entirely happened? What would happen now? What should I do? It was as if all will to live, to even exist, had drained out of me in that one second in the living room. I had no direction, no intentions, no desire to do anything.
The only thing I wanted was for the person in the chair in the living room to transform back to my loving, present, reliable Owner. And I know, by now, that there was nothing I could do to make that happen.
I gathered myself, and most unwilingly, made some breakfast. My Owner came in and said, with that dead voice that makes me cringe, that she'd made me eggs. I wanted to scream at her that I didn't want eggs. I wanted her. I couldn't care less for eggs or tea or anything at all, as long as she treated me as if I'd done something wrong without telling me what it was.
But I didn't. I said "thank you" and took the egg and the tea and sat down and ate my breakfast. It was incredibly hard to do, but I did it. I even conversed semi-normally with little S. "I could say 'I'm sorry' my Owner said, while I went to sit down. "Yes, that would help" I answered, but then she didn't. She told me about pressure at work and decisions she had to make, that made her feel bad and behave like she did, but I was waiting for the apology, and in lack of it, my empathy level was low. I didn't really care what specific things at work made her act like a jerk to me - only that she seemed to think it was justified.
I finished my breakfast and when I prepared to leave for school my Owner met me in the hallway and hugged me, and I told her, almost crying: "You never said you were sorry!" "I didn't? I thought I did." "NO! You only said it would help if you said it..." "Oh. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't say it, and I'm sorry I was grumpy. I'm sorry I hurt you, my little girl. I love you." "I love you too! And it's ok." And we hugged some more, and little S wanted to hug too, and then I could relatively calm ride my bike to school and a very early appointment.
This is so typical of us. It's such small things, accompanied with such strong emotions. She's stressed out over something at work - and have almost a full blown anxiety attack. I interpret that as anger, and very nearly fall in to a fit of rage. We bump in to each other, and it's so very very hard to do the right things, to find our way back from the brink of disaster.
This time, we did all the right things. I didn't attack her. I didn't confront her, there in the living room, I didn't pester her with questions of what's wrong and why wont she tell me. I went and tried to go about my day, eating breakfast. And she didn't belittle me or lie or avoid, she didn't pretend to not know what upset me. And she didn't interpret me being upset as an accusation, and didn't fall in to the trap of thinking everything was lost anyway, so why try? Instead she did what she could to comfort me, and when the bad cloud had passed, she hugged me and said she was sorry. And I was calm enough to accept that, to receive it and reciprocate. We didn't say anything bad, we didn't scare or upset little S, and we both could work afterwards. That's very very good of us. And incredibly hard to do.
And still I wish we wouldn't have to be good at it. I wish it came naturally. I wish we weren't drama queens with anxiety attacks, fits of rage and separation angst. I wish I could simply live with her being grumpy for five minutes, without feeling like the sky had fallen down over my head. And I wish she could handle a decision, albeit a difficult one, without zooming out completely and become some sort of other person, impossible to make real contact with. That I wish more then anything, perhaps because that is the part I have no control over.
We have a long history of ugly arguments and fights. Mostly the first years of our relationships, it has been getting steadily better. But everytime it gets like this morning, all those other times feels real close, and I feel really, really scared. I wish it wasn't so.
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