I want to write, but tonight the words refuse to cooperate. Not the way I want them to, at least. they all sound repetitive, a melancholy refrain that drips of self-pity, of loss, of disillusionment. People are tired of hearing it. I am just as tired of feeling it.
Denying that the feelings exist is pointless. They are just below the surface of my every waking minute. I pour cereal into a bowl and think of grocery lists, of the things we need or the next few days and the things I won’t bother to replace. I work hard to stay detached, business-like, because if I don’t, I lose my focus and become immobilized.
Each item I pack carries a memory. I find letters from my boys when they were little, a note my mother wrote to me on my honeymoon. I find loose pictures I’d thought lost, and I study each as if they’re a masterpiece: the expressions on faces, what people wore, remember what they said that day, what we laughed at. And immediately, I wonder if our quota of “fun” has already been met. Maybe those were the “good old days” and now, our happiness ration is depleted.
There is such a sense of detachment when you go through a serious financial downturn like this. People you thought were your friends drift off. They suffer survivor guilt and often would sooner stay away and hope things get better for you, than come around and deal with your feelings.
That isolation has been horrible. We think of moving now and know we need to be closer to people, people who won’t know our history and won’t feel sorry for us, people who will accept or reject us on the basis of who we are today, not who we were twenty years ago, and certainly not as the ones who “lost so much.”
We do not want pity. We only want a chance to show what we can do, and prove we’re still worthwhile employees, friends, citizens.
I’ve said more than I intended. My angst overflowed. Bu wow, this is a difficult time, and I find myself staying up late in a silly attempt to delay another day. Our move is coming so fast, and God help me, I am worried over how I will handle it. I feel like I could melt into a puddle of pathetic need. I’ve met older women who are obsessed with things lost: their face, their figure, their fortune, and always, men. I aspired to be better than that – stronger, invinvicible, kind of the way you’d expect Mrs. Obama to handle a situation similar to ours. Could she maintain her dignity or would she turn into a big sweaty lump of blubbering sadness? I know it’s what I sometimes feel like doing, but it’s not what I want.
Sometimes, our resilience and personal strength can surprise even ourselves. Maybe I’ll be lucky and that will happen with me. Right now, I’m much closer to feeling down and out. Tomorrow will be better. Everything looks brighter in the sunshine.
This week will be bad enough. I don’t want the added upset of knowing I made everyone around me feeling ten times worse, simply because I couldn’t contain my own feelings.
So I go back to my initial comment. I need to find a way to turn off my mind, without resorting to a sleep-induced coma. There’s no way I could pack and clean if I couldn’t move. Mind you, a temporary coma does holds a certain appeal.
ROADBLOCKS, DETOURS and ROUNDABOUTS 