Thursday's Trauma

I'm behind schedule but felt like doing some Thursday's Trauma anyways! Here are the prompts from Delores at Under the Porch Light, I will bold whichever words I end up utilizing. 

ramshackle, dispose, municipal, benevolent, garden, industrious

OR

calculate, misfire, truant, cap, brick, dangling

OR

fun with rhyme

pillow, mellow, jello, brillo, dayglo, gigolo

Let's see if I can continue with Kate and John from last week, eh?

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"Kate, watch out!" John splashed a cup of water at the floor as he waved her out the door of his kitchen. It was their fourth date and they were cooking between large glasses of wine and now a very dramatic spider encounter. 

"Chillax, he's just a little lost, give me a second and I'll dispose of him." Kate shrugged, sipped her wine and hunted for a slip of paper to pair with an empty glass for spider transportation purposes. "He'll be much happier out on the balcony garden."

"Hold it right there, you act like he's some benevolent insect just happening by for a nice visit but he's a spider; an industrious terror machine that would like nothing more than to bite your neck and spin webs in your closets!" John clutched a kitchen rag and prepared for a full on assault aimed at the quarter-sized arachnid, " Never trust a spider."

Kate laughed. "Seriously, I can take him outside in two seconds, no big deal."

As she leaned down with a piece of paper and a glass, John gasped and grabbed at her shoulders, pushing her back and up into the wall as the spider scuttled across the kitchen toward the oven. 

"Ah damn, he's gunning for the garlic bread." John frowned and edged away from the spider's path. 

"Wow, seriously? He's just a little spider!" Kate poured more wine into John's glass and guided him toward the far side of the kitchen, " You just concentrate on this while I take care of Mr. Spider here."

John continued to frown and rubbed his sweaty palms on the front of his jeans. "This isn't how things work in my apartment, spiders are the enemy. Period. I couldn't let you be attacked, it's a code of honor thing."

"Sounds like a 'code of paranoia' thing to me!" Kate scoffed. "Besides, in a building this old I'm surprised you don't have spiders in every corner." Scooping up the offending party and clamping a glass over the spider as it surfed on the sheet of printer paper, Kate carried it to the balcony before John could tackle her again. 

"You're either the bravest woman I know or the most delusional." John shook his head and watched her escort the spider out of the apartment.

"I prefer soft-hearted and decidedly not arachnaphobic!" Kate smirked and deposited the creature on the balcony in a crowded planter. "You, on the other hand, seem to possess a special kind of a fear that I don't quite understand." She shut the sliding glass door, threw away the paper and placed the glass in the sink before gathering up her own wine glass for a toast. 

"Well I think letting spiders haunt balconies should be against municipal codes but your ramshackle spider wrangling seems to have worked well enough for now." John grinned and raised his glass to Kate's achievement, "Thank you for saving us, my princess in shining armor."

"That was quite a big spider now that I think of it, maybe I deserve something more than a toast..." Kate glanced mischievously over her wine glass at John and ever-so-lightly licked her lips. He responded with a dazzling smile, setting his glass down as he wrapped his arms around her and leaned in for a kiss.

"I am most grateful and happy to oblige you madam." Smiling, he brought his lips to hers and gently kissed into the wine stained pucker. "Perhaps I'll learn to like spiders yet!"

Kate smiled and ran her fingers through his hair. "And if not, I can always be your princess in shining armor."

"Agreed."

Memories

Tonight was my aunt's memorial. It is remarkable how surreal it felt despite the many years I've been preparing for her departure. Knowing she would leave us prematurely didn't prepare me for being in her home, being surrounded by family and friends and memories but no aunt.

Being fresh out of the hospital myself I was feeling pretty raw. It's not typical in my family to be blubbery but I couldn't help it and thankfully I wasn't alone; my cousin, uncle, and mom were all emotional too. Good riddance. I am glad we could all appreciate the impact my aunt had in our lives, I'm glad it wasn't minimized. That happens a bit too much in my family.

Somehow the memorial brought up a lot of emotions regarding my hospitalization and depression, my frustrations surrounding being sick and struggling in my own life; feelings of shame and concern about getting my life in order and being there for my husband and son and family. Somehow the horror of my depression, the potential of my suicide, was only revealed in the shadow of my aunt's death and weighed upon me this evening.

The hubs reassured me that I'm doing all the right things; ECT, therapy, medication, hospitalization, we're looking into NAMI support groups, childcare. It's a bit overwhelming, I feel like I'm a bit outmatched but I also see his point, I can only do so much at a time, all the right things still take time to fall into place.

In the mean time, I must be kind and gentle with myself. I'm still in the midst of intensive ECT treatment and adjusting to life outside the hospital again... Life's twists and turns, I tell ya.