I’m not normally a melancholy person, and apart from the obvious reason, I really have no idea why I feel that way now: the house sale closes on Monday, Daughter got a new job (yay!), the other kids are doing fine, and I have two trips, one local and one international to look forward to in June.
Yet there it is: today feels like an “empty” day, I feel crappy and unmotivated, and I shouldn’t be.
It doesn’t help that Doc Russia is away for the next week or so, slaughtering dangerous game in his annual African safari (see below); this means that I’m denied my usual “beer, scantily-clad women, loud music and friendly company” remedy for whatever is bringing me down. I’d love to have a few cocktails, but I can’t and never could drink by myself. This is a new thing for me; in the past, I was perfectly happy to be all by myself, and was seldom if ever depressed. Now, I hate being without companionship, and I feel lonely without it. Fuck.
I think I’ll head down to the DFW range for most of the day, and give several of my guns a workout, followed by a thorough cleaning.
Normal blogging service should resume tomorrow. Sorry about that, but I don’t think I’m quite done dealing with this bloody bereavement thing yet.
If anyone ever tells you “You’ll get over it” do the world a favor and kick them in the nuts.
You don’t get over it, you just find a way to live with it.
For me, yesterday actually marked the day where I’d lived longer without my mother than I did with her (a milestone I passed with my Dad a few years ago). Last January was 29 years since Dad died and in a few weeks it’ll be 27 years since Mom died, and I still have those days.
Kim, you haven’t seen anything yet, the worst is yet to come my friend. It gets better and then the floor drops away again and the abyss beckons. My friend told me when I asked “when it got better”, said, “about a year”. Early this year I asked asked him again and he said, “about two years things start interesting you again”. He lied that first year to give me more hope or something.
Yesterday was not a good day, it was my wife’s birthday. She would have been 51. It was sad and not one bit fair, but it was better than last year. You roll things around in your mind and eventually accept things that previously you found unacceptable, but new fears/concerns/anguishes move up the line.
There is no hurry, it is what it is, but it never goes away. If it did, you wouldn’t be human.
Someone once said that there are things we never really get over, we just get used to them. My Dad died back in ’67 and I’ve never *really* gotten over it; I’ve just gotten used to it.
There’ll be days like this. We’ll help get you thru them.
Hurry over this side of the pond Kim. More than a couple of hugs await.
Hang in there, there are people whom you have never met that wish you well.
I second what Shreck said.
After a down morning I hope your day improved. Words are kind of just words but your readers do look forward to your postings now that you are at it again so, thank you and we care.
Happens to me also. Bruce Cockburn’s “Pacing the Cage” lyrics describe the feeling better than I can.
Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage
I’ve proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip’s worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage
I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It’s as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you’ll wind up
Pacing the cage
Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage.
Pacing the cage.
Pacing the cage
Massive upheavals in your life are damn scary, especially when they happen on a schedule, and everyone deals with them in a different way. I remember being a right bastard the last few days before I signed out of the Navy on terminal leave. The Good Days will come; hang in there.
It happens. I still get the blues for no particularly good reason, except that I’ve suffered a few losses recently and once in a while something will remind me of someone, which sets off the blues. The attacks become less frequent and less intense as time passes, partly because you learn how to deal with them. The trouble is that in learning to deal, you’ll get it wrong once in a while and make the situation worse. For instance, I decided to call Main Lady the other day, which was a big mistake on my part. Like most things I screw up, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wasn’t. So, now I know better.
Have a drink and relax.
Jump on a plane … you can do that Willy-Nilly now … fly to Baltimore and we will feed you crab imperial and take you to thr Gayety Theartre. Will pick you up at BWI.