Forty Ninth

I am fat, i weigh more than i ever have except when i was pregnant.  I only have two pairs of jeans that fit, and they are too tight.

I am not exercising, something i have done consistently for 20+ years, but not now.

I am lonely, but i do nothing about it.

I don't read.  It seems too hard.  All my life i have read books, but not now.  I just play games on my phone.

I don't sleep unless i drink and smoke.

I drink too much.  It's the only thing that makes me happy.

I force myself out of bed each day, but i always feel fear upon leaving my bed.

I hate my ex.  I hate him often, every day more than once.  This cannot be good for me.  People tell me to get over it, but they don't tell me how.

I am old, and ugly and wrinkled and stiff.

I cannot imagine anyone who would love me.  Worse, i can't imagine anyone i would love.

This is why i don't write.

Forty Eighth

Shelley.

One of the first times i met you, certainly the first time i was at your house, you told me that your mother was drunk.  I was very young and had never (knowingly) been around a drunk person before. I was afraid, and acted very stiffly around your mother as she showed us a card trick.  

For you it was a casual statement, an indication of just how different your life was from mine.  

You took me to places in 8th grade that i would not have otherwise been.  I learned to smoke dope that year, because of you.  We snuck out of houses and wandered the streets late at night.  Walking several miles to tape a joint on the door of someone who was important to you at the time.

Talking in your room, covering issues from coloring books to masturbation.

I was at your house the night your oldest brother was having a psychotic episode and was threatening to jump off the loft.

You were there during the time that i decided that having my eyes really wide open would be cool.  All you said was, "it's cool how i can see white all around your eyes,"  rather than, "Oh for god's sake, cut that out."

I was not cool.  You moved on to the cool kids.

You called me, maybe 5 years after we had been close to tell me your dog had died. because you knew i would understand what he meant to you.

I saw you, years later at your brother's funeral.  We hadn't been close in years, but i knew my attendance would please you.  It did.

The last time i spoke to you, you called me late at night, after no communication in 15 years, and told me that i had to read "Captain Corelli's Mandolin."  I haven't read it yet, nor have i forgotten the title.

Shelley, you were wasted.  You were so smart and funny and damaged.  You never had a chance.  I wish i had know how to help, but i couldn't even help myself.

Forty Seventh

Do you suppose that loneliness has something to teach me?

That sounds kind of like a stupid question.  But i found myself asking it today.  

Still reeling from the death of my brother.

Grief stamped a memory inside my body that will never go away, and experiencing this new grief has strengthened the bond between grief and me.  It will never be far from the surface now that i know it.  It's a part of me now.

I am working on the speech i wish i'd been able to give at his memorial, a speech i will never be able to give.  I daren't deny the legend that is Saint Jim.

Forty Sixth

I have just done a very scientific survey on the top 100 books for kindle on Amazon:

On the top 100:

- 6 books featured a male chest, usually naked, perhaps in a shirt.

of the top 100 FREE:

- 15 of the books were displays of male pulchritude.

You are welcome for this intel, gathered at great expense and personal peril.

Forty Fifth

I was at the grocery store buying cat food and wine today.  Another Saturday night for the single middle-aged woman.

I threw in some yogurt and bananas to seem less pathetic. It was an effort i felt i needed to make.

Right now the thought is making me laugh.  So perfect.  But i wonder if i'm healing, just a little.  I look back at the past 6 months, and i realize that i am no longer feeling the mood swings and anger that i did when i was with him and when he left.

I am seriously thinking about sending his new wife a "Thank You" card.  This feeling won't last, but this is the first time i have allowed myself to think about the reasons that i am better off without him.  He made me crazy and feel bad about myself.  In all honesty, i am not that bad.  You could do much worse than me as a friend.

Some things i like about myself:

I am loyal.
I am real. ( I want to emphasize this, as it becoming increasingly important to me. I have no tolerance for your denial.)
I am funny.
I am a good listener.  I can really drop my crap and hear you.
I am not judgmental.  Unless you hurt animals or children, i am pretty much okay with it.
I know how to be quiet.
I like to be silly.
I understand that nothing is simple, including emotions.
I love my daughter and my cat.
I don't feel the need to be the center of attention.  Well except for the blogging.  (See?  No denial.)

My brother's memorial is in two weeks.  About 500 people are expected.  How weird do you think it will be?  I am thinking pretty fucking weird.

Forty Fourth

And then there were two.

He is gone.  he died Tuesday around noon.  I am glad he did not have to live anymore like he was the last time i saw him on Monday afternoon.  It was awful.  His eyes were rolling back in his head from the drugs, his mouth was hanging open and he was having trouble breathing.

I got the call from his oldest son that he had died.  I sat for a minute, and then i cried.  I cried hard enough so that my daughter came out of her room to see what was wrong, although she already knew.

So, the legend of Saint Jim has begun.  His wife is saying that he was the best man ever, EVER.  The only people who don't think that are his family of origin, whom he mostly ignored for the past 40 years.  But if you think i am going to disagree with his wife/my sister-in-law to her face, you are crazy.

There are 3 people left on this planet who have known me all my life, and only one of them who knows what it was like to grow up in that family.

And my dad is 87, and my mom is 84.  This might be a rough year.

Seriously, thank you for your comments.  I read them all, more than once, and i love you.  You are so wise.

What will happen next?

Forty Third

When your husband leaves you, you can be sad for a while, but after that people wonder why you don't just get over it.  So you hide it, the sadness.

When your brother is dying (the word on the street is less than two weeks) it's okay to be sad.

I am using my brother dying to show the sadness i always feel, but now it's acceptable.  I am not over it.  I will probably never be over it.  But i feel ashamed to have let a man (my ex) make me so sad.  

Last night my daughter came home from a dinner with her dad and told me that he wished we had broken up when she was three.  That last 17 years of being a family meant nothing.  I don't think he should have told her that, and i wish she hadn't told me.  That hurt.

Do not misunderstand.  I am devastated that my brother is dying.  I know he is going to die soon, i KNOW it, but i still don't believe it.

Forty Second

I have missed you for years.  I didn't understand why you didn't want to be around me, but i accepted it because i accepted the idea that i am not that great.  I am the B list person.  It's not true, but i accepted that, because i thought it was.

Now i know that it wasn't about me, i was collateral damage from your need to get as far away as you could from our parents.  THAT i understand.  But i wish i hadn't been thrown away too.

Oh, the damage that was done.

Forty First

Okay, so, things are weird.  My mom is losing it, as in her memory is shot.  Jim is fading fast and it’s just so sad.  There are lots of events.  Jim loves a circus (or what i crudely call a cluster fuck).

Tomorrow all my cousins and my aunt are coming in to see Jim.  My mom wanted to take everyone out to lunch, not realizing that Jim couldn’t go, when my SIL pointed this out to her, my mom said “Oh, i could have lunch be take out.” and asked SIL to organize it.  Yeah, lunch for 25 or so people.  SIL does not have that kind of energy right now.  So i took care of it and got everything ordered and told my mom, who was relieved to not have to figure this out.  So my daughter and i will be picking up lunch for 25 (or so) at 11:30 and taking it to Jim’s house.  God only knows who all will be there.

Jim is….. i don’t even know how to describe it….in a wheelchair with his son helping him to move from the wheelchair to the bed to the couch.  Jim can’t even wear shorts any more because his legs and scrotum are so swollen.  He is sitting on pee pads because he is leaking.  The drugs for pain make him hallucinate.

I am sad.  But this is not about me.

Fourtieth

I... (it's all about me)... I cannot stand it that my brother is dying.  He's only 58.  I can't stand it, but, as fucking usual, i have no choice.

Also, to add to the creepiness, there are people who get off on the news of a dying person.  I wish i were kidding, but i am not.  My oldest brother, who is not, as far as i know, dying (any more than the rest of us) set up a blog site for information about my middle brother (who, goddammit, is dying).  There is this one woman who comments who is inappropriate and prying.  We are now moderating comments on the website, because of her, and i happily deleted one of her asinine remarks.  And of course, she noticed, because she is a complete freak, and is now emailing with me as to why her comment got deleted.

Fucking A.  Because you are an idiot, that's why.  This situation is not funny, or in any way amusing, so stop trying to be cute.  Fuck you.  Fuck you SO HARD.

Thirty Ninth

I just had a random thought about writing actual letters.  And then i remembered sealing wax.  And then i remembered the smell of sealing wax.

My best friend in the 5th grade and i used to write each other long letters, even though she lived next door.  These letters were full of parakeet feathers and pressed Cheetos and pictures cut from magazines and locks of hair.  Letters were sealed with sealing wax and various sealing wax stamps that we bought with what little cash that we had.   I still have some of these letters in an old scrap book that i kept up with for almost five pages.

In one of the letters, written when i was 11 and visiting my grandparents in California, i proudly announce that "i have learned what a bonar is".  I was so proud of myself.

Thirty Eighth

Isn't it awful what we get used to?  Walking around in a shroud of pain that we can't believe that everyone cannot see?  Going through life with a hole blown in our hearts and wondering how everything and everyone else seems so normal?  I know some of you know what i mean, i have heard it from you.

This is not me right now, not right now, but i see my Sil in this place.  It is a lonely place.  So lonely.  She will be losing her husband.  She sees it coming, which i did not.  And if/when he dies, will it be any easier knowing that someone did love her?  I don't know.

Pain is not a competition, But it is alone.

Thirty Seventh

My brother is going to die, likely within less than a year.

I mean, i don't know that for a fact, but it is what is likely.

I don't even know what to do with this.  There is nothing i can do with this.  I can support him, i can support his wife.  I can hope to resolve unresolved old stuff.  I can listen to his wife pour out her worst fears and sadness, fears she can't share with her kids or my brother, but i can take it.  I will take it.

I just don't know about life.  There really is no reason for it, other than the living of it.  This feels like a random act of cruelty from the universe.  Which is a dumb thing to say, as the universe has no presence with which to inflict cruelty.

I am ranting.  I have feelings about this.  Those at least are valid.  I am sad.

Thirty Sixth

I was snuggled up on my couch earlier today and i realized that i was feeling happy.  So i started to cry.  And then i got sad, and cried harder.

Feelings are so strange.

I cried for my brother, i cried for me. I don't exactly know what i was crying about.  I suppose there is no about.

Thirty Fifth

My brother has been feeing poorly for some time.  He has been to the doctor, specialists, whatever-ologists and done all they asked.

Four weeks ago he collapsed.  And spent two and a half weeks in the hospital, and was sent home to recover from the hospital, and went back in today to have a biopsy.

Cancer, of course.  Don't know what kind yet, but cancer nonetheless. Cancer that has been growing undetected for at least a few years.  Undetected partly because doctors do not listen when clients tell them that they don't "feel right".  "You're fine", they say after any given test.  "You're fine."  No need to look at the whole picture, listen to the client and keep probing.

I expect to hear bad news about my really old parents.  I don't expect it about my brothers.  My big brothers are invincible.  They can do anything.  I mean that sincerely, because it's true.

Goddammit.  Goddammit.

Thirty Fourth

“Do you hear me?  I feel like when I speak it’s as if it's wind just moving through the air to you.”

This declaration slays me.  He knows just what to say to make me feel like I am nothing, like I am the worst person in the world.  All our lives he has been accusing me of not listening, not hearing, interrupting, being judgmental.

I don’t have the distance to judge the truth of these accusations.  No one else has ever told me any of this.  I have a need to know if it is true, although it is true for him so I suppose the truth of it doesn’t matter.

“Yes, I hear you now.” I say, my head lowered and unable to make eye contact.  I am ashamed, which was his intention all along.

“I don’t think you do,” he repeats, gathering up his wallet and coat, “I don’t think you are capable of hearing me.”  Perhaps this is true, perhaps this is the one person I cannot listen to anymore.  Or perhaps I am only hearing what he is not saying.

The door clicks behind him as he leaves.  The cat immediately comes out from under her chair and circles my feet.

Thirty Third

(From the writing prompt: "My work is…")

My work is to shield myself from the world, and to shield the world from me. 

To avoid movies, books and songs that make me sad or angry.

My work is to keep one safe place for my daughter to exist, free from  the world's cruelty.  To say, when she came home last week with buzz cut hair done by a friend who clearly lacks the skill to wield clippers, “Look how cute you are!” as she anxiously presented herself to me. 

My work is to learn to comfortably say “I love you” to my brother, even though that is not a thing we do, because I need to say it without regard to whether or not he wants to hear it.  I will listen to his wife when she tells me that he will beat this thing, because he promised her that he would, and “he always keeps his promises.”  I will keep reality off my face and I will agree with her, because her need to believe is stronger than my need to be right. 

My work is to keep the friends who I like close and informed, even when that is uncomfortable, and drift away from the friends I have gathered who cannot listen to me.

My work is to listen better, and talk less.  To ask questions and seek to put myself inside another mind, just to see if I can imagine what it really feels like in there, even if I am sure to be wrong.

Thirty Second

What happened to me?  What happened to the beautiful, perfect stories i used to tell?  Did i run out of them?
No, i don't think so.  I think there are many of them still waiting to get out. Still waiting for me to have the energy to tell them.

If the stories i used to tell were not perfect and beautiful I do not want to know that. To me they were perfect and beautiful. Because they are true.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut "And it's true even if it didn't happen."

Thirty First (dig it bitches!)

I am from moving and getting along and “don’t be that way.”

I am from casual cruelty and uncomfortable affection.

From military line-ups to determine who ate the cake in the freezer.

Roaming free all day through out the closed military base, which we were forbidden to enter.

Hiding in the tree house that Mr. Sloan built, covered with crude crayon drawings of male genitalia.  (I guess female genitalia were too much of an internal mystery to the artist to get depicted here.)

Burning model airplanes in the gutter when no one was looking.

Making “perfume” from flower petals and mom’s Dippity Do.  Got in trouble for that one.

Looking around to see who might be watching before swinging out over the abyss on the tire swing.  Hoping that someone would notice and comment upon how extremely high I had gotten, the highest they had ever seen.

Keeping quiet when mom was in one of her moods and needed a dark room, saving my needs for later, or preferably until I had forgotten them all together.

Hiding on the roof of the house reading books until someone removed the ladder that had been set against the house for several weeks, listening to the cicada’s rhythm of singing ebb and flow.  Knowing that I wouldn’t be spotted unless I desired to be.  Trying to ignore my desire to be spotted.

Thirtieth

I had a dream last night that i definitely didn't need to have.  Why must even my own brain betray me in my sleep?  Why is there no where i can go for relief?

Twenty Ninth

A while back i got a phone call from my mother that began like this;  "I just brought your father home from the hospital.  I thought you'd like to know."

What i would have like to have known is that my father was in the hospital at all.

Twenty Eighth

My biggest fear is that this will never be over.

Here is the truth;  i don't feel like life has any meaning unless i have a partner.  If that makes me pathetic or weak, so be it.  It is who i am.  I don't have religion or new age to comfort me, i only have my family, which i no longer have.

And i can't see myself ever getting another partner.  I am old and used up.  I no longer know, or want to know, how to play the game.  Who would want a partner that isn't going to play the mating game?  Someone who won't put up with your bullshit?

The only bullshit i will put up with is the bullshit i can't see or smell, my own.

Twenty Seventh

All throughout the day the tension builds.  The tension that comes from the anticipation of the loneliness of the coming evening.

Each activity fills up some space during the day, but each activity brings the evening’s lack of distraction closer.

Sitting on the fence, waiting for the jump that will crack open the night.  Sitting with a foolishly cheerful grin.

And, in the end, giving in to the lullaby provided by tears.  In the morning it begins again.

No night lights are allowed in the bedroom, as they are believed to be detrimental to a good night’s sleep.  The same is believed true of noise.  So there is nothing except the sweep of eyelashes on the pillow for input.  Eyelashes that should not be moving up and down, but should stay firmly shut.

Twenty Sixth (i can keep going on this until infinity)

I have long been in the habit of carrying ear plugs around in my purse.  They have saved me a few times from annoyance, and sometimes from real pain.

These are the earplugs I pulled from my purse when I took my daughter to her first rock concert.  The band was Green Day, with whom I had a passing familiarity, but about whom my daughter had unlimited passion.   I was attending this concert as an act of love, because at 12 years old, my daughter had no way to get to the venue without me.

And i had a wonderful time.  Sometimes obligation leads to new discoveries.