In old suitcases forgotten in closets and claimed by mould, sometimes one finds remnants of one's past self. safe and dry. asking one whether one finds them precious still, enough to save them for the future; or whether they will be thrown away such that their tomorrow is impersonal, disconnected, and they become orphaned and meaningless. 

I rammed the car today. it's barely 4 months old. and I think I'm a pretty good driver. but I rammed the car today. about 5-7 mins after having a strange thought that said that I might have an accident the way I was driving, fatigued and distracted. I'd been about 6 hrs in the new place we are to move into getting wifi fixed and electrician odd jobs done in an empty flat. I had left home a lil after lunch. but in the hrs there I had had no water or snack or rest. I hadn't really wanted to call both those guys together, after a full day there last week with multiple ppl that had left me exhausted. and wifi had been his job to get done. but it hadn't been done to satisfaction, with the guest bedroom getting the strongest signal and the rest of the place left out a bit. so I had to get it redone. plus these wifi guys were supposed to come in the morning so I could finish with them, come back home for a few hrs and then go back to deal with eletricians. but as is in this country, nothing goes according to plan. ppl don't show up when they are supposed to. I also went and bought a ladder before I got to the place. so ladder-equipped, I thought I could do it all. and I did manage to get all of that done a lil before dinner time. all that was left was get my big notes of money changed somewhere, pay the electricians, and then decide whether I could also stop buy groceries or not. but even that's not what caused the accident. I once read somewhere that most automobile accidents (probably in the US) occur very close to the driver's home. (my last car in TX also I rammed into a pole at the gas station closest to my home on my way back after a long tiring teaching day). today I was driving back tired and listening to radio, and like I said a lil distracted after all that had happened - I had managed to drink a small bottle of juice after buying grocery to hydrate myself before starting back - when I had that funny thought about what if i hit someone in this state, which made me use my headlights much more and be careful. and then as I took the last big turn away from one of the busy streets into the lil VK lanes, barely 5 mins from home, I suddenly realised my windows and windshield were fogging and my vision was blurring cos of it. I slowed down and decided to stop by the roadside cos I didn't trust myself to use those controls while moving cos I knew I was fatigued and possibly driving without that sixth alive sense that drives automatically. I was stunned as I rammed into something. for a minute I couldn't even figure out what cos I couldn't see anything by now but before I had turned the car to the roadside I had made sure there weren't any vehicles or people there. and nothing else is supposed to be on the road, right? but no, this is India, and nothing makes sense where it is and things will always be where they aren't supposed to be. after turning on my heater and windshield warmers I could see that I had hit a giant bunch of twisted iron electric (or some such) wires that were anchored in the ground on that patch of the road. I've seen them before and one usually drives away from them but this time I missed seeing them cos of the fogged windshield. a man stopped and got out to check if I was ok. I reversed a lil to clear the car of the hit, and assured him I wasn't hurt or drunk. he thought I must have been on the phone. and advised me where to get it repaired and to leave the crime scene before policemen came around and harassed me. the iron wires were as strong as ever, well grounded, permanent. my left headlight was shattered, the broken glass had cut the car body there a bit, and the wires had bent about two inches of the bottom of the front. some part of that had also come unhinged and was sticking out. 

I'm frustrated. shocked that I did this. but more annoyed at this place, where trees grow in the middle of roads, where wires are planted on streets, where people don't turn up when they are supposed to, where nothing has any logic to it. and I feel alone in trying to fight it, even though these months I've given in quite a bit to 'the hand of god', that's why I wasnt angry this morning with those guys not turning up as scheduled, and I've been trying to 'go with the flow'. but I shudn't be hitting anything when I'm trying so hard to avoid just that by stopping along the side of the road before figuring out how to clear my windshield. but that's exactly what happens in this place. f#@$*&@ shit hole

I think I need help dealing with his illness. It sometimes overwhelms me, scares me, makes me feel helpless. and I've been feeling lately that the therapist isn't helping me, cos she is his therapist firstly. everything she does or says comes from the primary goal of helping him learn how to live with his illness. I feel lately like that's not helping me, at least not in the same way I had hoped it would. She doesn't respond to my messages or emails anymore either. and there is literally no one I can reach out to, who would understand or help me when he is in that frame of mind, expressing it as anger directed at me. sometimes it feels like there's been no progress at all. sometimes I feel my life is not mine. sometimes I don't know how I will smile tomorrow and forget. and how I will deal with it again because there will be an again. cos this is not going away. the therapist told him in his session today that he was much better. and soon after that we were watching a movie he thought was brilliant and I disagreed and thought was bad because I felt it was trying to create horror out of (what seemed to me) terrible tragedy and bad parenting (possibly a mentally ill mother); that caused him to be annoyed at me and when I didn't understand why it turned soon into anger and accusations. I have walked out many times, sometimes out of the room, sometimes out the front door without a purse or warm clothes, just to preserve myself. I have also tried shutting up, holding his hand, listening, ignoring, trying to reason, ... nothing helps till it passes, and that can sometimes take very long and is unbearable while it lasts. it's like he can't take it that I don't share his anger and he keeps lashing out trying to invoke it in me too. anything I say then gets distorted in his mind. and when he starts shouting I just can't think anymore, I feel trapped and constrained, I feel numb and tired and I want to hide or run.

when we did not live together it was easier. I would shut my phone off or throw it under a pillow. he would go on calling till he got tired. and I waited for him to cool off, for it to pass. now there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to wait. 

and yet most of the time I am glad we finally live together. especially in this pandemic. and when I hear news of death. today I heard from another friend who has lost her husband. I gasped when I read her email, I knew he was sick but I didn't think he would pass away. 

life is unreal.