Gandalf Doesn't Live Here Anymore
He says he loves me. He says nothing matters more than me, and our kids, "our family." He has a strange way of showing it. I tell him again and again and again what I want, what I need, as if it could still make a difference. He works so hard at giving me what he thinks I want, what he thinks I need. He seems wounded that I don't appreciate his deciding that he knows better than I do, what it is I want and need. All the love in the world cannot make up for the jarring lack of respect he has for me.

There was a half-dead cat convalescing here the last week or so. I dubbed him Gandalf the Stray and allowed him to rest peacefully in a dogless dog crate in a quiet room until he got some strength back. He got better, never quite well, but better. Gandalf's health improved enough that he was too restless for life in a quiet crate. So we let him join the zoo that I call home. I swear in two days of freedom that cat has sprayed more than all the other cats I have fostered put together. I've taken on a lot of feral, un-neutered beasts and no one has scented my home with the same fervor.

My Florence Nightingale devotion to the broken things in my care does in fact have limits. Gandalf doesn't live here anymore. Now if only he understood this. He's been in the front yard, and he's breaking my heart. He gives me those sorrowful looks as he rushes the door meowing to be let in when I go out to take out the trash, the recycling or to bring in the mail. I gave the emaciated critter a dish overflowing with cat kibble and I pet him every time I'm out there. I even had a neighbor come to my door to retrieve "my" cat from under his mom's car. I feel like a schmuck, a Grade A heel.

He doesn't understand what went wrong. He liked it here. He let me feed him and pet him and give him soft, clean towels to sleep on. He was even willing to tolerate my other cats and those horrific dogs. I'm sure Gandalf cannot grasp why he isn't welcome here anymore.

I think petting the cat makes it worse somehow. These little bits of affection make it more confusing, planting seeds of false hope. I like him, I really like him. I just can't live with him. He's gonna be who he is, and that's well within his rights. It's just within my rights to not live with that, isn't it? I mean I know that I initiated sharing a home, but if it didn't work out, it just didn't work out. These things happen.

So why do I feel like some kind of villian? Why do I feel cruel for caring, but not caring enough? I can go through the motions and pretend like I'm okay with it all. I think I owe it to myself and my children to set some boundaries though. This is my life and I have the right to demand some share of happiness. I have the right to decline the burden of other's behaviors, even if they really aren't at all personal, even if I'm the only one who finds them bad.

I'm feeling weary, a bit worn down by it all tonight. Every little ache taps into a deep well of other aches, such that rejecting a cat and rejecting a marriage all seem like one wound under the hemorrhaging mess. Nothing for it really. Time to take a deep breath and do some more laundry and crank up the music until I can't hear the meowing at my bedroom window.