You know when you’re completely and utterly, madly in love with someone who also drives you mad? And you want to ditch them, but you love them too, too much? Yes? You know this feeling?

Well, thankfully I do not have this experience with my boyfriend, but instead with something else.

I must speak very vaguely here since you never know who might decide to read this someday, but I am being driven mad very slowly…

I try very hard to breathe deeply and welcome each new day afresh, but by the time I’ve been with this ‘flea’ for a couple of hours I feel as though I just might pull each hair out of head one by one out of frustration.

I love my flea and I keep hoping everything will get better, but we’ve been together for awhile now, this flea and I, so a separation seems utterly impossible. And I’ve become quite co-dependent, too, which is always tricky.

So, now that breathing deeply isn’t working as well, what now? What now when it seems like there will never, ever be another flea again and certainly not one that “gets” me like this one does. The fear is that there might not be any flea better than the one I have right now and I am clinging to the hope that things will get better if I stick it out just a little bit longer.

Tell me, dear friends, how long is too long to live this way? Must I stick with my flea even though it bugs me?

*that pun is for erica