Night Meanderings

I am about to go to bed for the evening. I came home from work and got a hot shower and got in bed, as I do every evening. The heat from the electric blanket has not helped much the last couple of days. I guess this weather has just tied me up in knots. My back, knees, hips and feet just hurt. Hot water helps but one can only stay in the bath so long. I've done some reading and watched tv shows.

The depression abates and clarity returns but slowly. I am filled with that constant sadness that never fully goes away. It settles around me like a cloud. Remember the kid in the Peanuts comic who had this cloud that followed him? We all laughed about it. It isn't funny. I can't shake it. I do things to keep me occupied but I'm never really happy. I exist in some halfway state, able to pretend for short times that "I'm fine. I'm going to be fine. I'm happy."

People say things like, "You're better." "You sound better." "You feel better." I truly get so tired of it. They have said it for almost two years. These days I simply lie. Yes. Lie. I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not even sorry. I'm forced to lie or people keep telling me "You'll get better." This further tires me because it forces me to continue to lie. It is exhausting to keep up appearances.

I would never have believed that people did this to widows. To expect us to wake up one day and say, "OK! I'm better now. They're dead and not coming back and so I can live my life now as if it was all just a bad dream. No problem! I'm fully recovered and my old self."

We will never ever be ourselves again. The person we were, the one you knew, is dead. It isn't a joke. It isn't going away. It isn't going to change. We are not who we were. And we don't know who we are anymore. We will not laugh at the same jokes. We will not plan in the same way. We will not look at anything with the same eyes. We will not laugh so easily. We will cry more. We will not care about your petty squabbles with you family because we know the price.

I heard a woman this past weekend being so rude to her husband in a restaurant. They looked much older than I. He was trying to help her. She was so nasty to him. I simply wanted to tell her she was a ugly harridan who ought to have to sit out in the cold so other people didn't have to look at her or listen to her. He sat at a table alone with another man while she sat with some women and acted like they were fresh cream. My gut wrenched and I wanted to slap her.

We feel hate much easier, too. We see injustice and cruelty with a clearer eye. Death is reflective. In him you see who you really are and you cringe from it. And the ugliness in others is much more sharply defined.

I hate holidays. Mama had a stroke Dec 24 1973 and died Jan 2 of 1974. Daddy died in late November or early December - I was in finals in 1990. Jerry died in January 2010. My life is filled with bitter and broken Christmases and New Years.

I thought today that if I were truly brave, truly bold I'd catch a flight to Tahiti and lie on the beach for the whole week. It is summer there and warm. The only lying I would do would be on the sand.

I'm not brave or bold anymore. I'm terrified.