Dec 10

 Rough few days.

The garage phoned up, car had been fixed, MOT passed, waiting pickup.

Cool. They phoned literally at the end of the day - 30 minutes before closing time, was I going to come in and pick it up ? They had woken me up out of a deep and groggy sleep. I was 20 minutes on the other side of the city. Not including getting myself ready, and a taxi on my doorstep. Yeah. Probably not today then.

The following day I was up very early. Super early. Fucky sleep cycle. The internet went out.

Proper, out, all round. Fucked up.

I was tired. Exhausted. I felt sick. Everything was hurting. I had no car. I had no internet. I couldn't watch shit. Everything was a problem.

These days I tend to live on the edge anyway.

The prospect of being alive is not a given for me. It's. Dubious. At best.

On Saturday, coldly, calmly, I really fucking assessed whether it was worth sticking around.

This is it buddy. You're not enjoying yourself. Everything is suffering.

I contemplated it.

Seriously.

I couldn't tell you why. But with a horrible fucking grinding. I decided to tackle one problem at a time. And just do it.

I wont get into it. But by the end of the day, the car and the internet were sorted. With my car returned, I had quickly nipped into get some groceries on the way home, in the full knowledge that I was not nearly well enough for this shit, but, I would just get a few bits to tide me over.

You know when you have that level of pain that you keep on death gripping everything without realising it ? Hilariously I was walking around the grocery store death gripping the cart. Every so often I'd have to consciously let go, breathe, release the white knuckles. Before inevitably 10 seconds later returning to a white knuckle grip.

It was painful. Gout. For the most part. Layered with all the other shit.

Came back home. Struggled and groaned to pack my few groceries. And then slumped into a 17 hour sleep.

The rest of the days have been a blur of feeling nauseous, achey, like I have a flu, and just feeling like shit all round. Exhausted.

My mood has lowered a lot.

I am feeling more ill than ever.

Yesterday I told Andy I was taking the rest of December "easy". Which is to say, I wont be about, unless you really need me. Whilst in someone else this would be a cause of joy, ooh a month off, for me it is no such thing. It is a necessity. It is a vista of struggling, suffering and unwellness. It is no joy ride. It's just a mark of how shit I am.

I have wandered into the paranoid ( but not entirely unsupported ) realm of pondering if my kidneys are fucky. The nausea, continual gout, exhaustion, shitty eyes, and all the rest of it fit nicely in with a "your kidneys are fucked mate" diagnosis. The problem with all of this is, that a lot of things fit a lot of symptoms. The dangers of just researching what does what, is that it could be any number of things, any number of coincidences. The only proper way to find out is test it all. And rule shit in. And out. In the absence of being able to do much at all that way, my ever working brain instead games the possibilities. Both helpful and unhelpful at the same time. I am cognisant of the dangerous ground of just becoming "ill" with every single thing that google can find and descending into some manic hypochondria. Take a breath. Yes. It's shit. There's not much you can do. All the tools are gate keeped by a lazy unbothered professional class. You just have to accept that.

Difficult.

Ho hum.

Whilst this goes on.

Hazel has popped up with the inevitable question that has been coming for months.

Would I lend her money to get Poppy an x ray.

Uh huh.

This is so foreseen that I had already discussed it a little with another friend.

But here we are at a decision point.

My instinct is to say no. But this isn't easy. Or clear.

I never want anyone to suffer. Dogs, triply so. So. Don't let a dog suffer. Sure.

But. Hazel in the meantime of not getting an x ray done, has fucked off to the US on holiday, bought this, bought that. And now. Is here asking for money for an x ray.

Hazel is incredibly shit with responsibility for things, despite her loudly decrying the opposite. She singularly pushes responsibilities out from her, onto everyone else, and paints herself a victim. Her dad has said as much very gently to her. She - of course - shot him down with anger and gave a few examples where she did in fact take responsbility for herself ( kicking drug habits. albeit. even just recently it's clear that that isn't exactly an overwhelming success either ).

So the question starts to become. Do you support someones responsibilities who is wilfully shit at dealing with them. A more responsible person would have, to my mind, not gone to the US, saved that money, and got an X ray instead. Instead of doing that. Then crying about not being able to.

There's also then the shifty transplacement of responsibility onto you. The implied. Oh. If you dont give me money, you're not a nice person making a dog suffer.

High art manipulation.

Having a dog is a big responsibility. It is one of the reasons I don't get another - I am pretty sure I would not be able to live up to the responsibility of care that one would require. Or at the very least, I would not be happy with the level of my care that I could give. I think it would be unfair. Even though. I am very aware. Of the massive benefits having a dog would do for me. By that same token, if a dog was in dire straits, and then being looked after by me - in a non perfect way - was a big step up for them. I could, morally, do that. But again my instinct would be. Find someone else. They deserve a better life than I can give them. I also know I have very high standards, I get it. I think dogs deserve no less.

Can I afford to give her the money ?

Yes. Of course.

So doesn't this just come down to a nuts and bolts, just hand over the money to prevent suffering of an innocent mutt.

Yes.

But it entirely sidesteps the actual problem of Hazel being irresponsible in the first place - and absolutely will continue to be so.

In other words. You're going to have this problem forever.

So.

What do you do ?

My instinct is to say no.

It was what I had planned to say all along. Because. She needs to take responsibility for her life choices. Properly.

She also has, in order of theoretical closeness - a boyfriend, a dad, an aunt.

How does it fall to me to be the bank manager when you have a boyfriend full time employed working in IT ?

Uh huh.

I haven't answered her yet.

I think I need to talk it through with some friends. And get some opinions. And see what they say.

Don't get me wrong here. I like Hazel. I try to help her. That's not going to change because of this. But she definitely has the most enormous wheelbarrow full of flaws, complications and poor decision making. And navigating things with her can be challenging to say the least. This is one of those things. Where her own poor decision making directly impacts a very predictable outcome, which she then passes the responsibility buck on. Hum ho. Rubber meets road. How do you do deal with someone who is epically bad with responsibility.