6:52 p.m. Playing "Wife"

I lasted until 4 p.m. before I crawled into bed for two hours. This was after, I think, I told Jb I'd make dinner, which I promptly forgot. I do remember the noise of the tv, the computer, Jb smoking, and it's like a static in my head that I can't tune out. I have problems with noise now: too much of it, too loud, too sensitive to it. Sometimes, when I want to sleep, or get very very quiet so that I can visit the party line in my head, I resent the noise. And so I resent Jb.

"The bitch" itches just below the skin, waiting. One minute, we're laughing, the next, Jb's looking at me wrong, I'm paranoid about what he's thinking, every expression is some comment on my condition, every request, some monumental task I can't stand to do for him. This is not about Jb. There is something wrong inside me, and anything can trigger it. And the bitch scratches her way out, scratching eyes and hearts in the process, and even when I know, somewhere in my mind, that there's no reason for this, it happens all the same. And because it does, the bitch becomes me; I become the bitch. And my mood dives.

So I play the "perfect wife" game. Dinner ready and on the stove at 5:30. Fresh-baked brownies, cookies, lasagna. Because I'm hoping food will forgive everything else Jb has to deal with; I'm hoping he'll see that I love him, that he isn't just a paycheck, which it feels like more and more when I'm numb and indifferent. Still, even then, I know that I love him. It's the disconnect in the knowing and the feeling, always that gap that I'm too tired, too sluggish, too down to traverse. Until the numbness lifts again, and feeling becomes fact. Up and down. In and out.

This is how my last week has gone:

10 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. -- Wake up.
10:10 a.m. - 2:40 p.m. -- Rummage in the fridge for a breakfast I don't want.
10:40 a.m. - 3:10 p.m. -- Sit in my chair and stare uselessly at the computer screen.
2 p.m. - 5 p.m. -- Try to pack one box, do one thing, so that I have something shiny to hold up to Jb when he comes home: "Look, I did the dishes! Look, I packed a box!"
3 p.m. -- Nap time. Deliberate or otherwise.
5 p.m. -- Start dinner.

I am happy when I manage one thing and dinner. I have managed this almost every day this week. I consider this a good week, despite how I might have actually felt. Because managing one thing and dinner looks, from the outside, like normal.