I Can't Go On, I'll Go On

Back home the two pretty red lights on my DVR are alive and well. Maximum recording capacity. And Cary wears a flight suit to work. I return to work, filing his loan consolidation and my LLC papers--and getting online orientation underway for my new virtual job. Taxes, retirement. The world of freelance is not entirely carefree.

My inbox is full. A bill is late. My blog is behind. My short story file sits un-updated. And my running clothes remain only used twice. It always astonishes me how much I can intend to do away from home and end up not doing much of. But now there are no tea and tiny sandwiches with mom this week, or vampire shows for adults. There are no invitations to shooting ranges where I can practice being G.I. Jane or Evelyn Salt. But there is a very sick puppy and a lot of catching up to do.

We cuddle, and I wish I could give her a bath with her oatmeal shampoo before her front right leg is removed in the morning. There's been no sign of life in the limb for weeks. I took her in after she nawed on it until infection, and the doctor said sweetly and quietly that it was time to amputate. He offered to introduce me to a client and golden retriever of his--who had the exact same leg removed and is doing great, fast. Sounds good, I say. I send Cary pictures of her in the waiting room because she seems happy. I feel like we're getting her back, even though her leg is worse, because she's recovering from the accident, the scrapes and sore muscles and bones and some nerve damage around her eye healed well.

We still feel guilty no matter what anybody says. We still feel less capable of being parents sooner rather than later, than we did several weeks ago. But time is all it takes. Irritatingly, that damn clock is always not necessarily the answer but the salve. Kick in any time now, Hour Hand, because I can still feel tears bubbling every time I talk to the receptionist at the veterinarian--because she has this river of a sugar-coated, nanna voice and commentary that feels like my best friends and mom and grams combined. It takes everything in me not to hop over the counter for a bear hug.

Cary passes API, and Butters loses her leg today. But when you can't go on, you'll go on. Feel it. Write it down. Do something. Count the 11 legs left (with our cat) and the couple of dreams still in the works.

The novel The Unnamable (1953) by Samuel Beckett: 'Perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.'

If that disjointed monologue threw you like it did me, this is more 2010 and Ally McBeal when it comes to lyrics or a beat that cheers. The clip is from the movie Bandslam, featuring the make-believe - I - wish - was - real band I Can't Go On I'll Go On.