Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Ghost Rider and Fifth Wheels.

Restless today, and easily angered over trivial crap.

Also angered over not so trivial crap, as in mom informed me today that she hasn't been doing her PT and upper body exercises like she is supposed to be doing, and as a result is weaker now. Understand, she is bed bound, and so every bit of exercise counts! 

I'm just ticked off. Why am I doing this every day, if mom isn't going to do her part? All this is going to do is affect how long she is in PT after the replacement on Monday...the weaker she is, the longer it will take for her to get up on her feet and for me to get my life back.

It is what it is, but I'm tired of it being this way. I miss my mornings with Mike, having breakfast with him and hanging out before he goes to work. After the kids go off to school, we generally have the house to ourselves and we just hang, or do chores or run errands. I miss that. I miss it a lot.

I am reading Neil Peart's "Ghost Rider", which I bought yesterday at the Kindle store. I am 3/4 of the way through it, even stopping to make notes (Kindle is cool like that, you can make notes and highlight portions etc. Awesome) on passages that have meaning to me. There have been times where I've shed tears for him and the pain, the unimaginable pain, that he suffered. 

Even though my suffering and grief over certain parts of my past, like the break up of my and Adele's father's relationship, watching my grandfather suffer and then being the one he asked permission from to die, having to tell and hear my mother about the death of him, watching my ex-mother-in-law die and having to tell my then husband that his mother wasn't going to live past the weekend, and a myriad of other things; I understood and understand his pain. His need to get away and to just keep moving.

There are times when I wanted to chuck it all and just go away for a while. To just get into the car and drive, to put miles behind me and to think.  There is one passage, in particular, that spoke to me. Or, I should say, had me nodding in total understanding..." For some reason, as part of that grief work it also seemed necessary for me to replay every single incident of my own life....Every embarrassment, act of foolishness, wrong-headedness, error, idiocy etc. going back to childhood and all the way forward to now.  I physically flinch, say "ow" out loud, or "fuck" as the case may be, and can hardly bear it. "

I sill do that, although to a smaller extent, than I did in the darkest days of my breakdown. I caught myself doing this over the weekend, as I sat on Jason's sofa, head thrown back and listening to Moving Pictures, the remastered, awesome assed, super duper digital version.

He had been kind enough to squire me about in search of a summer weight riding jacket, and now, as I lolled about on a hot afternoon, he was helping Cherie unload the car of groceries. I heard both the music and their interaction, sensing the comfortable flow that they have together and I suddenly felt like a fifth wheel. Red Barchetta had me, for some reason, thinking about a stupid incident in Middle School that involved me getting a hickey from John Quigley and being stupid enough to try to hide it under make up. 

I hadn't thought about that in DECADES, yet the humiliation that I felt over the ensuing rumors that spread around our Peyton Place of a school, still burned after all of this time. Foolish? Yes, in the big picture, but still hurtful none the less to that insecure, awkward geek that still lives under my skin.

These memories distracted me from the music, and shattered the peace I was feeling in that lovely living room, with it's high ceiling and cool, villa-like vibe. So, I got up and said good-bye, still feeling like a fifth wheel and wanting to flee as fast as I could. They are both so busy (he's a cop, she's a nurse) so I know how valuable "alone time" is and I felt like I was cutting in on that. 

I had fun at Laser Tag with Kevin, Tedd, Mike and the gang, but I was more reserved than I normally am, or at least I felt that way at times. The later it got the quieter I got, yet still couldn't sleep once I got back to my hotel. I slept, eventually, but I can't shake this angry lassitude that followed me back from New Orleans.  I know that I've reached my tipping point, yet I cannot bring myself to tip over...duty and honor compel me to suck it up and carry on, but it's so fucking exhausting!

I am sitting on the patio as I write this, looking at the lawn and it needs to be cut. So does the front, actually. I guess Mike will do it tomorrow, or the next day. He works so hard, so I don't want to complain about it. I also don't want a bitchy tome from the homeowners association.  I'd cut it myself, but it's too damn hot, even at this late hour (it's 8:15pm here and the sun is just setting) also, I can't be arsed enough to do it. If only the mower were self propelled, then I could make Katie do it. A cut lawn isn't worth having to listen to her bitch and moan about it, though.

To hell with it. I have naan and hummus in the fridge, I have a nice pinot grigio chilling as well...dinner calls.

No comments:

Post a Comment