More to do than can be done.

9/2/06 Saturday
Yesterday ended well. I cleared up dramatically while Cherie and I were getting tires for her car. I took her out to eat while they did the work. We went to the Brewhouse restaurant. We’d never been there so that is always an encouragement cause we both like new experiences, at least when they’re good. After that we were stuffed so went home.

Allen had returned my call at close to five o’clock. I had called him at noon then every hour till three or so. He was just waking up and apologized for not returning my call. Allen had a rough night where he could not get to sleep at all. Part of this is because his head gets busy and won’t shut off. All kinds of thoughts on top of the pain. He has told me that he often contemplates suicide. As I wrote this it came on me how much of a hell this can be. I pictured the struggle in my mind. Imagine the thought processes. “I’m gonna do it. F--- it. My guns right over here. I’m tired. Just end it all, go ahead”.

Then the other side comes in, the common sense part that wants to live. These thoughts are of the many friends he has had that committed suicide, one with a gun he had just sold to. He had told me once that one of the things keeping him from suicide is he didn’t want to cause the heartache and pain they did.

He thinks of family and the few friends he has in the small little world he lives in. But with these thoughts come more of the pain that drives him. I’ve heard no mention of a father in the eight or nine years I’ve know Allen. Maybe some aside that I don’t remember. His grandfather was highly abusive and pretty much used him as forced hard labor, the consequences of which Allen lives with in the form of the arthritis that riddles his neck and back. Allen told me of being hit in the head with a hammer and other tales of horror.

I don’t know much about Allen’s mom through all this but it wasn’t pleasant either. She was strict and there was no television, nothing to occupy him. Now she lives in the large house on a lake Allen had pretty much built over the years for his grandfather, disabled from diabetes and gross obesity. There is an estrangement of Allen from his family. I haven’t asked about it because I generally do not delve into peoples personal matters. But he grew up in Maryland and only visits every year or so. It seems he is not in the inheritance from the grandfathers estate. Anyway thoughts of family don’t help Allen much.

So this is his hell, forever fighting this tiredness, this pain, both mental and physical, and this desire to end it all. I understand better why he is so anxious for me to stay. He is afraid of being alone, of the demons that come out when no one is around. That’s why he constantly has a movie playing. Always something to keep his mind occupied, distracted so he won’t go back to his hell.

I’ll probably run over there later today. We went to the Direct Buy showroom and spent three hours pricing things we will need. We looked at refrigerators, stoves, ovens, washers and dryers, and windows. Lots of stuff to sort through. We priced out some things and thought we’d have to pare down some. Then we remembered there was always a formula in back of the catalog that we use to determine our price. For most of the items we looked at it was half price or better. That helps. Changed the picture totally.