Do not read this. It is Sappy and Too Personal. You'll be sorry. TMI! TMI!

I am attacking the dirty dishes. There are many. Jeff wanders in. Do you ever have any...emotions? he says, in the usual somewhat flat and tentative tone.

I have all the normal human emotions, I reply. Anger, sadness, happiness...

What makes you angry? he asks.

Humans acting like dumb, mean troglodytes, I say.

What makes you happy? he says.

My children, I say. They make me very happy.

He does not know what to make of my stoicism, because--while a guarded nature is and always has been my default mode--he knows that he used to experience a more open and communicative version of me. He does not realize that when the receiver broke, the transmission could not be completed. Or, to try another inadequate analogy, it takes a warm hand on the surface of the plasma globe to focus the current.

If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be? he asks.

I deliberate momentarily. I decide not to answer that I would change him to who he was 10 years ago, because I seek to not pin any of my angst on him, at least not in such a way as he would notice. Instead I answer, truthfully, that I would be a contributor to life in a way that helped other people.

He thinks about this, and more or less understands, since he did not choose nor does he appreciate his own lack of employment.

But that is the end of the discussion, because now he has done what he intellectually knows he should do--that is, see how I’m doing. And he does care about the answer, I don’t mean to make it sound otherwise, but his ability to respond or connect empathically is a seriously compromised function, along with spacial orientation and following a multi-person conversation. And counting backwards by 7’s. (Yeah, there was another mini-mental at Georgetown Tuesday.)

The problem with the conversation for me, is that--even as I hold firm to the stoic façade--unwelcome emotions are burbling to the surface and I forcibly suppress them via diligent attention to the task of unloading and reloading the dishwasher. I can let them out when Jeff goes to ride the elliptical, because he will never notice--his tuner no longer detects that frequency.

Naturally, I question my lack of openness and unwillingness to be vulnerable. Is it fair? Is there any way I could try to be a warmer person? My demeanor is, for the most part, kind, but it’s a therapeutic kind of kind--not the sort that flows naturally from the joy of a fulfilling two-way relationship.

I might liken a mutually satisfying relationship to a pair of bunsen burners, each burning a unique gas. One emits a turquoise flame, the other orange. But put them together and you get something remarkable and unexpected, like a smokeless magenta flame with a purple aura. The orange burner’s pipeline breaks--its gas is inaccessible, and it feebly burns only oxygen--turquoise in partnership with the turquoise burner. And it wonders what happened to the magenta flame. But the turquoise burner cannot burn magenta by itself. It tries to fake the magenta flame, but can’t. (Yes, weird, I know. Who else would anthropomorphize bunsen burners?)

It’s like if someone took your soul mate and turned him into Teddy Ruxpin. You can (and should) hug him--it’s good for both your healths--but he will not understand you when you tell him about your day, or explain how it feels to be the “dumb one” in your family, or share any other of your stupid neuroses because he does not have that microchip. So, you will be disappointed if you try. He will merely grin back and say “Let’s read a story!”

What you should do then is hug him and read a story.