I've come to realize over the week I've spent where I'm currently at, that I was totally correct in taking my engagement ring off. On one hand, it's a horrible feeling. On the other, I feel totally vindicated about a lot of things.

Most of this trip has been spent listening to my ex complain about how sore she is, while asking her why, exactly, she hasn't been addressing this properly with anyone aside from the doctor at the pain management clinic, who she's also only giving about a quarter of the story to. I get blank looks, a hung head, and silence as a reply, as she knows I know she's going "Oh, but I feel great, so I don't need to do any exercises to keep things from getting stiff, and I don't need to try anything new with meds, and I don't think it's that bad", then coming back here and making huge issues out of things she didn't bother getting looked in on two hours prior at the doc's office. Yet, as usual, if I state that my calves are awfully stiff from walking up and down the steps on the hill to the dock eight times in a row because she's forgotten things, or we've just gone down there so much over the course of the day, I get looked at like I'm nuts for not taking pain meds and spending the rest of the day in bed. Sure. I'll get right on that. Because I can't possibly feel okay enough to do other stuff around here. I've also stopped buying into how horrid her stomach issues are, since she's displayed her knack of "forgetting" to eat, which makes it worse. So long as she consumes food throughout the day, her GERD and assorted problems that require more pills seem to not kick up much at all. Hrm. Curious how this works. Also curious how the doctors told her that this is how it would go, and again, she didn't listen.

I also found out I've been lied to again about the back surgery. Now the official story is that she does need it, but that the surgeon is so concerned that she's dropped so much weight that he's afraid to put her under for it until she gains some back. She's not making an effort with this, for God only knows WHAT reason, because her "stomach gets upset" if she eats too much. Usually after she forgets to eat all frigging day, because she can't be bothered to get out of bed due to being "too sore" to walk over into the main house on the property to get something thrown in the microwave. Yet with me here, she's eating like a horse and hasn't gotten as sick as she's claimed she does. I smell something rotten in Denmark, here. So glad this isn't my permanent problem. Jesus. I'd go insane.

It's also a very telling thing when two different family friends have been here, and instead of asking Chris how she's feeling, they've asked me what's going on. Things like how her appetite's been, how sore she's been, if she's taking her meds on time and properly, how much she's doing around here, if she's keeping the cabin clean, etc. I can safely say the cabin is a fucking sty (she cleaned one table when I pressed the issue, and hasn't touched the rest since...it's been a week, I'm pissed, and I'm not doing it for her again), she's taking her meds without fail because she knows I won't allow her to BS me on it, her activity level's been pretty high, and she's been eating when I make her sit her ass down in a chair to consume food, instead of letting her lollygag around the house while her plate of it gets cold after I've cooked a meal. Even then, she'll typically get four bites in, start making faces, and I have to sit there staring at her and telling her to stop talking so much, because she needs to eat.

But, like I've been told by my father and a friend that both sat me down to hammer all of this home to me before we got too deep in wedding planning, I can't fix this if she doesn't want it to be fixed. It's slowly becoming a fixture of the "not my problem" section of my brain. No matter how many times I tell her I'm concerned, it's going to be blown off. Likely until something either lands her in the hospital and it's too late to do much about it, or until it puts her in a box in the ground. It really sucks. Especially since I have this whole "I must fix this wounded person" mentality, and have since as far back as my parents can recall. There's just...no fixing someone that doesn't want to be fixed.

So for the next week that I'm up here, as I got my period and I am not doing a 12 hour drive home from Ontario, even if I split it into two day, with migraines and cramps sitting on top of the general aches and pains I always have, I'm just not going to let it get to me. I'm going to spend time on the dock in the sun, I'm going to go walk around town with her and whatnot like we always used to when I'd come up, and I'm going to just make sure she eats once or twice a day. As usual. Otherwise? My hands are tied. I've tried. It's all I can do.

Oh, and the festival I came up for? I might as well have not bothered. The city has done a fantastic job of fucking it up over the past three years. Where we used to spend hours upon hours down at the midway years ago, this weekend we were there for about an hour and a half. The games were crappy, nobody was around, they had something like 8 vendor tents when they usually have something that looks like a tent city going on down on the fields, and just... I don't get how it got this bad. Yet the city is calling it a success. Riiiight. No problem.