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We're double masking now. A year into this and we're double masking. I thought we'd have the virus under control to have some semblance of normal life. But we can't count on each other to do that here. America the free. I have a private office downtown - very low risk, no shared elevator, just a walk up in an old building. I still only go in to check mail and water plants. I continue to be blessed with work, as does my husband. He, however, was already someone with a tendency to self-isolate. He rarely leaves the house to begin with. I am someone who needs alone time. I don't get it. But then, who does or who has in the past year? I have grown so tired of his inability to attend to anything that isn't emanating from a device, that I write long private missives in journals where I scream and rant and rage. He hasn't asked about my father in a week. My father - my favorite human in the world and who has done nothing but support and be interested in my husband. My father who is in convalescent care after a hospitalization. How does a week go by without inquiring? He sees me sullen at the sink one evening and says "What's wrong? Work stuff? Family?" I said, "It's been a rollercoaster week with my dad, since the care meeting on Tuesday...." He looks at me blankly. "...I told you my brother and I had a care plan meeting with the entire staff...on Tuesday?" His response: "Is this the part of the conversation where you make me feel small for not having remembered something?" He turns it on me. He turns it the fuck on me. I text my best friend. She says, "Well. that would be the appropriate response, for him to feel small, because it's outrageous to forget." Wish I'd had the presence of mine to say as much to him - instead, I walked away. Never did get an apology. Per an NYT opinion piece about Michael Goldhaber - a physicist? anyway, he popularized the notion of an "attention economy" over 20 years ago. He believes that every single action we take is a transaction - so it's a zero sum endeavor: when you pay attention to one thing, you ignore something else. I have been the something else ignored for so damned long. The pandemic has made me question why I've acquiesced to living like this for so long. I do everything - truly everything other than taking out the trash snd recycling every week. Everything else is me - shopping, meal planning, cooking, cleaning, paying the bills, budgeting, prepping our taxes, fixing/painting/patching/repairing. Every. Goddamned. Thing. Why have I done this for 20 years? Why should I keep doing so? What am I getting out of this relationship? Sure, there is love and affection there, when pressed, but the actual attention? The partnership? Nope. Not there. Jesus Christ.
February 10, 2021