Well, I got into a fight with my best friend the only way men know how to fight; nod and grunt and mhmm on calls until the calls become sparser and then one day, I notice we haven\u2019t talked for a single minute in a whole month. Every time we planned to meet, he\u2019d cancel because his wife guilted him into seclusion yet again. My daughter was supposed to visit for Christmas, but that too has changed\u2014the flights costing what they do\u2014and besides, I think she might\u2019ve met someone. She told me she loves the sunny, warm winters in Australia, and I wonder when the shift occurred from loving her marshmallow-laden hot cocoas on wintery nights to unwrapping presents at the beach. I don\u2019t blame her for not wanting to spend the money, but I can\u2019t help but blame her a little bit for kicking her old man in the teeth, bucking with tradition. My wife tells me I don\u2019t understand what it\u2019s like being a young woman, but I suspect she doesn\u2019t either, it\u2019s been so long. Anyway, ever since my friend and I stopped talking and my daughter and I kept missing our weekly calls\u2014what, with the time difference and all\u2014and now learning Christmas will be just another day with more house chores to tackle, I started having this tightness in my chest that comes and goes like a rubber band snapping into place over and over again. My wife rolls her eyes whenever I bring it up, but every night I go to bed, I ask her what If I don\u2019t wake up, what If I die in my sleep from a heart attack, and all she does is groan and roll over and tell me to stop being so dramatic. Sometimes I wish that\u2019s exactly what would happen so she could feel stabbing guilt. And then I feel guilty, can you believe that? So anyway, this poking in my chest just won\u2019t go away and I\u2019ve read that fish oil is good for heart health, but so is magnesium, and apparently red beets too. I guess I\u2019m just at a loss and wanted to know what you\u2019d recommend for some cardiac support.<\/p>\n
Rich stops typing and stretches his thumbs like he\u2019s watched his nephew do after playing hours of video games; like he\u2019s going to charge into a deeply intense session of thumb war. In the background, the TV drones on in muted silence. He watches the three speech bubbles start and stop until finally, a message appears in the chat box, the fluorescence of his phone casting his face in sterile light.<\/p>\n
Hello, welcome to Gaia Herbs Live Chat, what may we assist you with today?<\/p>\n
Below the message, a multiple-choice list of categories to choose from, none that address his chest spasms, or the loneliness of aging, or feeling yourself being phased out of your own life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every night I go to bed, I ask her what If I don\u2019t wake up, what If I die in my sleep from a heart attack, and all she does is groan and roll over and tell me to stop being so dramatic. Sometimes I wish that\u2019s exactly what would happen so she could feel stabbing guilt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-nikoletta-gjoni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19778"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20309,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19778\/revisions\/20309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}