The Weekend So Far. . .

Becca and I cleaned out the garage yesterday. A pile of trash sits by the street waiting for someone to come and spirit it away. I have to pay someone to come get it as I missed the heavy trash pickup in April. The weather was either too cold or too wet to clean the garage and they came a day early, anyway!

So, we cleaned it yesterday. We put a lot of stuff back in around 7 p.m. because it got dark, but there are things I need to sort out. She does to as some belong to them. Still, it isn't nearly as much. I've told them all the storage facility is closing and they must figure out what to do with their items. I'd like everything out and the car in. What a novel idea!

I've had a lot of water come in. The thing leaks around the edges of the wall when we have a lot of rain. It sits at ground level. We've had a lot of rain and so water got in. I have to get the mess cleared. I'm concerned my cabinets may be messed up now. I'll be back out next weekend if I can but I am supposed to go to Florida the last week of the month.

And this morning I knew I'd been cleaning. My back is screaming. My hands hurt. My arms are achy between the shoulder and elbow. My calves hurt. I just have no muscle strength anymore. I asked the doctor the other day if I should join a club again and try to build my strength back up but she is sending me to water therapy instead. That's going to cost more, I bet.

I had both boys, Becca and Sarah, with me in church this morning. We went to lunch afterward. It was nice, but I so missed Jerry. And this afternoon has been horrid. I took them home, and then Mike left. I came home and lay down on the couch for a bit, which is very comfy but when I realized I was going to sleep and was cold, I got in bed. Where I then could not sleep. I got up and put a hot pack on my back... which isn't hot at all, and here I sit.

I'm tired. And I'm exhausted of falling into this terrible empty place. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I'd like to rest and enjoy things but I just keep slamming into circular walls.

I do not know if I will ever get over this thing. Yes, I know everyone says I will. But I can't see anything beyond it. There is no purpose to it. It makes one realize the planning and dreaming are a waste of time. We dreamed of watching Sarah graduate from high school, go to college and maybe, if we were lucky, marry and see our first great grandchild. We planned to do things for us this year. Now, I make no plans and dream no dreams. It doesn't matter whether or not I fix the house because tomorrow, I may be gone. So I don't really want to bother. The effort is just too much. I do not relish ripping out floors anymore.

This afternoon I lay on the bed and remembered that we had planned to change the light fixture to match the one in the study. I remembered the night we changed that one. Took far too long and we kept having trouble with the box in the ceiling. When we finished it we had this great sense of satisfaction because it was so pretty and we had fun doing it. I can't do that alone. I don't want to spend any money anymore. It isn't fun at all. And when I hurt, I realize that my working days are probably numbered. I'm not going to be able to keep doing this. It isn't getting better.

Someone once said to me that there is no real purpose to life. I disagreed then. Now, I think it is true. We create meaning in our heads and we're just passing through. Try as I might, I can't find any other answer. It all means nothing at the end. A collection of painful memories left behind to torment the living.

You know, I have those grief books everyone gave me, two or three of them. I've read a bit in one, finished the small one the counselor gave me, and another I started but couldn't read. It wasn't MY loss. I have found nothing in any of them that is helpful to me. Isn't that crazy?

But, after thinking about it, I've decided that everyone takes this journey for themselves. You can't share it. There are traveling companions, but they are all strangers on the train. Each one gets off at a different stop. Some sooner, some later. But we each arrive at a different point in the journey. The journey means nothing.

I'm one of those people who sit on the train until the end of the line, staring out the window at the passing landscape - some barren desert, some verdant forest, some dark and bleak and wasted, some sun-drenched flowering meadows. I can get off at any stage of the journey, but there is nothing waiting for me there. I know they are all just a facade, a front. What lies behind the scenes outside the windows was at the beginning of the journey. So, I continue the journey because I've already been there. I don't know what lies at the end because I don't know where the end lies.

I remember this terribly long stretch of interstate highway between Montgomery, Alabama and Mobile, Alabama and a similar stretch between Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Charleston, South Carolina.(See the last S. C. album) Straight highways that take you from one place to another. Hours of nothing but pine forest. There is nothing of interest or merit or meaning except that you have to pass through them to get to your destination. They are deadly dull to pass thorough and frightening if you breakdown at night. No houses for miles and miles. If you travel it alone, you can go to sleep at the wheel.

This is that kind of journey. Long, pointless, empty and frightening. It'd be nice if you could sleep, but there's no one to drive for you or to wake you when it is over. So, I ride the train, staring out the windows and waiting until the end of the line.