March 06, 2011
So many little things falling like thunder on today...I woke up at 6am and wondered what it was, exactly, that was wrong with me yesterday.
(I got the dishes done before quarter after.)
I was supposed to go a funeral. My favorite uncle -- Paul, who lived with us when we were younger -- lost his wife to cancer. I should have been there. But I got hung up. On something.
The word "visitation."
(I got the cat box cleaned by 6:30am.)
Visitation.
Of what?
A dead body.
I get it. I should have sucked it up and been there just the same.
(Laundro. Done. 7:45am.)
I think I made myself sick instead.
I was sick with worry over how to handle it. How to act. How NOT to be. You see, I tend to laugh at funerals. I tend to tell jokes. Really bad jokes. I don't cry at funerals because I cry when it hits me later. Or before. Or... Whenever.
But I haven't cried. For awhile.
I haven't cried for me and I haven't cried for Mary, Paul's wife.
(8:30am and I have two cups of rice cooked and fluffed.)
And then I realized that a decent part of me was happy I didn't go. Look at all the things I was able to accomplish. I got sleep the night before. I got chores done twelve hours later. A whole day ahead of me.
(Vacuum. Garbage. Errands on the outside. Filing of important documents. Tax prep. Personal loss list. Shaving of the leggies.)
But there's still this big ball of a storm pending over my head.
Waiting. Looming. Hesitating. Threatening.
And I don't know where to go with it.
Should I run for cover or wait it out to see what happens? Should I let it fall, stave its madness or put it off for another day?
My brother, as worried as I am over his curt, complacent sentences, I haven't spoken to in three weeks. I don't have time for that. I don't have time to worry about him. I just don't want to make time to worry about him.
I hate that about me.
I still haven't changed my address on my driver's license. I still haven't completed my personal loss statement for my insurance company. I still haven't sent out my Homestead forms to my previous landlord. I still have a leak under my kitchen sink. I still have to pick up my buddy from the airport and make myself a rock star for a job interview on Tuesday and remember the directions to the interview in the first place. I still have to pay off my credit card and write more Thank You cards and remember everyone's birthdays despite not having my calendar and buy frickin' presents and modify my resume despite losing all my documents and clean the spots of white paint of my windows and check on the tire pressure on the front left tire of my car and get a spare key for that damned thing and register my laptop and get myself a decent coat so I don't look like a motorcycle hoodlum the rest of my damned life.
And Mollie called to see how I was doing. Kim has a couple chairs for me. Brent's work buddy has a table for me.
I have to do all these things.
And for all of them I should have been at this funeral.
I should have said my good byes.
I should have supported my family. Paul, at least.
But I didn't want to have to face another thing I've lost. Something -- someone -- I can't bring back. A person. A dear person.
I didn't want to. So I just didn't go. Granted, I felt like hell, but I believe I made myself sick. Literally. Wondering what it would be like. Wondering what I would say, what I would do, how I could have my own time, my own personal farewell, with that great big beauty in my life.
My father told me it was best that I was not able to return to my old home to see my old things. The third floor of my building too damaged to tread upon. Burned. Destroyed. Blackened beyond recognition.
So why should I want to see my dear Mary? The result of a tragedy. Taken before her time. Unrecognizable as the ball of fire she once was. The satire, the genuineness, the sarcasm, the love, the light that she once was. Gone. What of that was worth the world to see? Like my grandparents, picked off by time, reasoned with by fate, relinquished from all the smiles they once encompassed.
There's nothing left to see. Nothing left to hold onto. Nothing which can give me the response of joy or a feeling or acknowledgment. Nothing of reciprocation.
There is nothing there but the morbid curiosity of having to behold it for myself. To know it beyond all shadows of a doubt. To witness it first hand. As we are deemed to do in our society.
Death.
And I'm just done with that. For now, anyway.
I'm done with seeing everything fade. Burn. End. Die.
All I want... the things I have to do. The tasks I have to complete. The jobs I must finish. The roads I must begin. The paths I have to face. I need that time to do the many things I have to do. To focus on me. To make my ends meet. To make the things right that feel so wrong. I need to do something different somewhere else.
Give me the forward motion and relinquinish the dead ends.
I'm not willing to look back now because I know -- I KNOW -- I will get stuck there.
Wishing I was still there or wanting to take back what I said or wondering if I could have done more. I'm done with always and forever picking through the damned wreckage. Hoping for a slice of IDON'TKNOWWHAT and living on slivers of NOTMUCH and making JUSTENOUGH count for everything when it's hardly worth the fuel of trying.
I'm done with that.
Perhaps tomorrow will be different. Perhaps tomorrow I'll want to stay in the past a little longer. Perhaps I'll want to linger. Perhaps I'll hesitate again before closing the door for the last time on what was my life for the last decade.
Perhaps I'll be right back where I was 1-15-2011, feeling the fire consume the very ground from under my feet, listening carefully to the never before heard blood curdling scream that should have sent shivers up my spine and wonder what it was that prevented me from shedding tears or feeling an ounce of remorse. What stopped me then from being irrational and what is preventing me now? Right when I deserve it. When she deserves it most.
Perhaps, someday, I'll give Mary the moment she deserves.
Who knows. All I know for sure is, right now, I have some work to do. I have some things to accomplish. Some asses to kick. Some big things to be. I have too much going on to worry about how I got here. I have a new home waiting to be created. A new job waiting to be conquered. A new mess to clean.
I don't have time to pick over dead, destroyed, dilapidated things; despite how much I loved them. Wondering what I can salvage from the wreck. Wondering what I've lost and where it all should fit now when it has no place. I don't have time to tinker.
I don't, for the first time in my life, have time to worry about you.
No matter how big you are.
And, from the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry about that.