Grappling

Yesterday evening I asked Dion to lie down with me and he slipped into bed like some warm and hilarious lifeline, and I clung to him as such.  I needed to be held and to talk about whatever decided to pop into my bubbling-over mind.  I said, "When I say things like: 'The surgery will either cure my insomnia or I'll die, and either way I'll get to sleep' I don't really mean it.  I don't want to die.  I don't want to leave you or Casper. I'm just talking tough because I'm afraid."  And he said, "I know" with that affectionate you're-not-fooling-anybody tone as he pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head.  "You're a cute little thing," he added, and that must have felt unexpected and very important to hear just then.  Bewildered by every last thing about life and love I queried with total surprise: "I am???" and started to cry.  And when I stopped crying we talked about Donald Trump for a while, which felt like a natural segue, as the countdown to that garish, vitriolic reality television personality being the actual full-fledged Commander-in-Chief feels exactly as surreal and damaging and terrifying as having slept only a smattering of hours in some ragged fever dream for months on end and then learning there's an unwelcome mass sitting smugly in the exact center of your brain-- daring you to think about it, daring you not to, daring you to try to get rid of it, daring you to let it stay put and just see what happens.