Ponderings

I'm home tonight, alone. I've just watched two SciFi t.v. shows that like. A writer's meeting was scheduled for tonight but everyone cried off. I suspect, as with all things, the Writer's Asylum is closing. It's o.k. I've felt it for a while. I still like my friends but their lives have become so hectic and no one is able to meet on the same night anymore. Tonight, only Doug and I would have been here and we both said there were things we had to do. I had an appointment to help Dave get a car.

Doug and I met last night at the Midwest Writers Guild meeting and talked a bit afterward at Barnes & Nobel. I think I mentioned before that next September the MWG is hosting a writer's conference here. Sept 30-Oct 1. Doug is telling me to get one of my novels done so I can maybe pitch it to an agent. That gives me a year. Maybe he's right. We'll see. I am looking forward to the conference. I've never been to one and this is sounding really good. It will be local at the Marriott on Hwy 41, probably 2 miles from my house. We'll see.

I've sat here tonight in a bit of a funk. I'm not depressed. Not really. I'm pretty empty at the moment. I don't know what I feel. Life isn't much fun. I don't know exactly what it is all about.

I've been reading these grief books a little every day since I can't seem to read a whole book anymore. I mentioned once that everyone gives them to you when someone dies. They're all full of fluff about holding on, going with the flow, keeping your chin up, looking up, looking at the positive. The truth is they don't really know which end is up. Everyone on the planet is affected differently. I'm sure they've all been very helpful in some ways. The ones I got in the mail quarterly were probably the most helpful of all in that the let you know that what you were experiencing was "normal" and you weren't actually going crazy even though you thought you were. But there is nothing in the books to tell you how to live. I think they think they do.

I can't tell you either. I'm here, now, and I've read them. I've listened to all the people who think they know. No one has a flipping clue. Breath in, breath out, eat, sleep, work. One foot in front of the other. Mark another day off the calendar. Scream, kick, pound the floor, sob until you can't breath. Then start over. Gradually, the intensity lessens but the horror, the pain, the torturous memories do not go away simply because you decide to look at the world through rose colored glasses and smile sweetly and say oh my do you remember.... If that works for you, peachy. No, you simply lock the trunk in the attic and close the doors to your mind and hope to God no one goes in there. You do stop beating yourself up. You learn to live with all the blame, or guilt, or remorse, or whatever your poison is. Not because you want to. But because you don't know how to do anything else. You look at photos on the wall and ask "When are you coming home?" And you mean it.

You end up sitting in your living room in a funk, not knowing what life is all about and why you're here. And you're not sure if you really care. What's the real point. I'm not sure there is one.

I'm trying to discover what I really want. We've all sat around and said, "If I had the money I'd. . . ." "If I had the time I'd . . ." No you wouldn't. Because it doesn't matter. Not really. It is meaningless. The smiles across the table, the shared joke, the hand squeeze, the backward hug at the kitchen sink, the back rub when you're tired. That's what's important. Not the new car, the big screen t.v., the latest gadget. We were never into that stuff much, mostly because there wasn't enough money. But we'd much rather take a day trip to the mountains, a picnic to the park, a camping trip to the forest, a holiday with family. It is the only thing you're going to have left at the end of the day. Leave behind all the fancy homes, expensive cars, electronics, and huge bank accounts. You missed it. They will be gone in a generation and no one will remember who they belonged to.... well they won't belong to you anymore and you will be forgotten. Ah, but remember that camping trip where the tent flooded.

I bought David's car tonight. I could have let it go, told him to figure it out. It wasn't much. A used car, less than 2000. His car needs more repair than it is worth. So, I cleaned out my savings account for the last time. It is only money. When I'm dead they will spend it. So why not now when I can see the benefits. I came home and felt strangely empty. As if I had sprung a leak and everything has poured out of me and there was nothing left. And I realized that it doesn't really matter. Life, my life and Jerry's life had never been measured by what we owned or had in the bank. Neither Jerry or I cared about those things. We gave to our church, not just our tithes but offerings because we wanted to help buy pews, build a new building, lay a parking lot. We loved our church and we loved God and wanted to do something. We gave to our children when we should have said grow up and go to work. Because we'd struggled and remembered the bad debts, bad checks, low wages, nearly empty larder. What were we going to do with it anyway? When you're dead you can't spend it. Someone will. Maybe that is how he was thinking that last year. I don't know.

"When are you coming home?"