I'm Smarter Than I Think

So Tim and Squeaky, still broken up (I guess) are still cohabiting--if "when one walks in the other hands them the baby and walks out, often for days at a time" can be referred to as "cohabitation". Tim called me last night (at 11:30, 12:45, and 4 AM...on a work-night....before my earliest morning of the week....) and, among other things, told me that Squeaky had not been home for four days, and that a week or two ago she turned to him and told him that she was "sick of LittleMan". The kid isn't even four months old yet, and already his mother is leaving him at home with his father and staying out for days. Tim, who is not at his peak for many reasons, threatened last night to drop the baby off at DCFS and tell them the mother abandoned her child--and then walk out on both of them.

I would normally want to strangle him for at least ten reasons in just those sentences alone, but I am cutting him the most infinitesimal bit of slack for a crucial reason: Cassidy, his 15-year-old cat who has been with Tim for as long as I've known him, is dying, and Tim can't even do anything about it. When Tim told me the details, at the end of one of the phone calls--I'll spare you all from them--but when I hung up the phone, I cried for literally an hour. Poor Cassidy; he was such a good boy, and it breaks my heart that he's hurting. (I told Tim to take him to the vet not TERRIBLY far from where he lives, and I'd call in and take care of the bill for having Cass put down; but of course, Tim can't leave til Squeaky returns, and there's some drama involving Squeaky's phone, and blah blah blah--because Squeaky wants to be an immature little brat, Cassidy gets to hurt for another day, and Tim gets to hurt as he watches his beloved cat waste away. I really want to punch Squeaky right now.

And then there's Deb; the thing we were most afraid of has pretty much happened, and she's in a bad case of postpartum depression. I'm so worried for her--she sounds so sad, even though she can explain from an intellectual standpoint exactly what she's feeling and why. And her husband is NOT helping; he's choosing to stay out later than he has to; when he WAS home, he had the flu and was acting like a whiny baby the whole time. I do not understand certain men.

I understand CR a little better, though; he's been amazing, incredible, wonderful--and the only thing he HASN'T done is make it into town. If the snow would maybe manage to stop happening every three days alternating between here and there, perhaps progress would be made in this area as well. But we talk via IM every night, and we've pretty much worked out everything in the past that went wrong.

But right now, honestly, I'm just pretty glad to be me. Compared to all the things my friends and loved ones are going through at the moment, a messy house and a pile of laundry the size of Mount McKinley are practically comforting. And if I needed anything to confirm my judgement, both Tim and Squeaky with their cabin fever, and Deb with her hormones kicking her ass and her stitches in a Really Bad Place, have reminded me how much I really do NOT want to go through the whole having-a-baby thing. I guess from a philosophical/dream world standpoint, I'll always wonder what might have been; but from a practical, about-to-turn-40-and-none-too-stable-my-damn-self perspective, I've made the best decision for me.