Everything is not a tragedy...

That's what my wife said to me just now, everything is not a tragedy.

Except that it feels that way.

My father has redone the bathroom floor and I haven't had a shower all weekend. I knocked a pry bar on my foot and it hurt. I took a picture of C.'s room to post on Facebook, couldn't find the pink USB cord to connect the camera to the computer, borrowed a grey cord that fit the camera from my father and had to kick C. off the computer.

I told him all I needed was "ten minutes," except when I finally got the camera hooked in to the computer the memory was full.

I had to sit through a slideshow of the last year of my life, starting with the dead mouse pictures I took right before my stroke, going through Christmas and Easter and Elinor's recital.

And I say "finally" because before I could even look at the pictures I had to physically hook the camera to the computer, which isn't easy when you only have about fifty percent use of your right hand.

I turned the computer up on its end and found a spare USB slot (our computer has several spots that used to be USB slots but the sockets have fallen into the computer) and then I dropped the computer.

It only fell over, but that was far enough, apparently. The computer died and wouldn't come back on.

I had C. come in and turn the computer upright but it still wouldn't come back on. We tried the monitor cable and the power cables and finally as a last ditch attempt I unplugged the power cord from the back of the computer, plugged it back in and hit the power button.

The computer started back up. It whirred and came to life. I swear I didn't breath until Windows XP finished loading.

But it finally loaded, and I had to look at a bunch of pictures from when I first had my stroke and it depressed me.

I'm not usually one to get depressed, at least I wasn't before the stroke. The stroke took away all of my coping mechanisms. I can't hike, I can't swim, I can't even go shopping by myself.

In all of my first two decades of marriage I only contemplated suicide once and it terrified me. I immediately sought marriage counseling.

The last week I was in the hospital I thought about killing myself nonstop. If I hadn't been kicked out when I was, I might have tried to strangle myself with my belt. I wasn't quite sure how, but I had already decided to do it.

Which is why I worked so hard to get myself thrown out. Robin wasn't quite ready for me yet and it was uncomfortable but at least I'm not dead, which is what I would be if I had stayed at Cardinal Hill.

Anyway, C. just came in and reminded me my ten minutes is up, which depressed me even more.