The Masks We Wear

I've been thinking a lot this week about several things. One of them is the fact that we all have different faces we show people. Most of us don't like to entangle our private lives with our work life and so on, so we all have a different mask we wear according to each situation we happen to be in at the time. There are things that you can say to your friends that you might never say to your family. There are things you would say to your lover that you would never say to your co-workers. This week, I've been worrying about my husband and how that mask I wear at work, slips every once in awhile and it's hard to keep it on when everyone has noticed just how sick my husband is.

I don't like for my work life to be entangled with my home life and I take great pains to seperate those things, especially since my husband and I both work at the same place. We both do different jobs and we were together before we started working there. It's been hard though. He's worked 2 half days in the past 3 weeks. Financially that worries me, but I'm more concerned with his well being than anything. He argued with me about the fact that he swears he's not been losing weight, but the scale said he's lost 10 pounds since last week. He's at the hospital right now getting an ultrasound on his throat. I'm anxious and worried. I'm not sure what to do. I feel like I need to get in touch with his daughter and let her know what's going on, but really, I think she'd freak if she got a message from me via Facebook that her dad is really sick. I don't think he's told her. I don't think he's told anyone about it and he's pretty mum to me as well. He's not a person that has an easy time talking about how he's feeling and it's really frustrating sometimes and we have fought over it. Not because he doesn't talk, he retreats and suffers alone, afraid that I'm going to call him worthless because he's depressed and worrying about things. I try to reassure him that I'm not going to say something like that. We've been through too much shit together since 1996 to just walk out because of something like depression.

This isn't depression though. He is physically sick and I worry. I don't sleep well anyway and this is making it worse. I'm not about to tell him that however, he's always trying to make sure I'm feeling all right. Hopefully they find something out today something actually gets done instead of these endless appointments that do nothing but burn the gas in my car. I won't know until he gets home.

So I try to distract myself with games and music and books. It's always in the back of my mind though. It's what makes me wake up in the middle of the night to make certain he's still breathing. It's what has my stomach upset most of the time. There's not much I can do until the doctors actually do something besides scheduling another appointment. It's not healthy for a person to lose 10 pounds in a week. It's not healthy for a person to run a fever one or more times a day, for weeks at a time. But there's nothing I can do right now. Nothing at all. Greatest healthcare system in the world my ass. He's had a trip to the ER and several doctor's appointments and nothing has been done. Absolutely nothing. It makes me not only upset and worried but very angry.

But there's nothing I can do but wait. Angry, upset, worried or not. Nothing will change the fact that I am powerless in this situation. There is nothing I can do at all but be here for him. I work to make certain we have money coming in. And every minute of the day that I'm at work, I'm worrying about him. If he's all right. If he's resting. If he's throwing up again and feverish or collapsed and no one is there to help him at all. And I work for 12 hours at a time. Some weeks I work 60 hours. What can my cats do if he were to collapse and needs help? And it goes on. I create more and more horrible things that can happen if I can't get him on the phone. I'm tired. Mentally and physically. My own health problems aren't helping matters either. Fuck. Oh well. I just needed to spill a little of my angst, let my mask of sarcasm slip for awhile. It may make me feel a little better.

So, I'll distract myself with a song from one of my favorite bands. And wait for him to get home.