Attempted work today, but only made it until about 11:30 a.m., and once I settled in to bed, this is the hand-written journal rant that poured out. This is not a Fran needs fixing entry. I believe that writing is a healing tool and this writing is my attempt to heal myself. The question I will ask, when you're done reading, if you haven't given up by the end, is can you identify?
Tues., March. 21, 2006, 12:45 p.m.
First full day of spring--and after a night of rain, it's so beautiful outside--scattered cloud shreds against pale blue winter sky. I tenuously decide a day's work will get me out of the doldrums of being a wrung-out, wet washrag. I quickly found I was still nauseous, shaking with weakness, and utterly verhwlemed by the work on my desk--none of it on deadline. I visit Development for our 10 a.m. staff meeting, only to find out I'm an hour early. Sigh. Check phone messages, e-mail, prepare for staff meeting, return calls. Then Bob R. drops by to go over our custom archival cabinet project; he took one look at me, and decided to do business with my 8 foot conference table and 8 more feet between us. We finished our meeting and he said, "For our sake and yours, go home, Fran." And I agreed he was right. I'm a tough broad but it's not fair to others.
I've got cabin fever as it is and hated to go home, but prepared fortifications by going to the library for my drug of choice--books. I managed to eat a totally bland bean burrito and have been forcing water, 7-up and lemonade. My back particularly aches--skin so sensitive even to the beautiful, clear breeze. But didn't Dr. M. say yesterday that the spinal column in the lower back has thinned even more than last year's bone density showed? Once, or twice, a cancer survivor, one always leaps to conclusions over the slightest illness.
But more than anything, I long for some kind of cheering squad with the cheer advisor being someone really smart, nurturing, compassionate, and no-nonsense. Thank God for Kathy, who called again at bedtime, and my grandson who keeps asking me if I want a hamburger or a pizza. (Yuk!) One of my big character defects is "assuming" people will nurture me--they'll read my mind, even if I don't tell them how I feel. (After all, being the good co-dependent that I am, I do that quite naturally for others.) I do thank all of you who have been cheering me on here in the comments. Who would know what blogging could do for the homebound? You are my cheering squad. Thank God many of you did comment, or I'd probably feel even worse.
How much of this whole rant is the dregs of the stomach flu and how much is a long overdue pity party? We all need one of those occasionally. I want and welcome change--that's the bottom line. Good change, choice change, not reactive change. I'd been doing so well with that on my new path of exercise and diet. I had begun to feel virtuous. So much for that. (Sure have lost a bunch of weight the hard way right now, though.) Now I need to slowly heal physically so my mental attitude matches.
If I were impulsive, however, I've move--yes move! Where? Who knows? Who cares? I'm not going to do that. A. has to have a home for another 1 1/2 years if he needs one. Besides, I love Villa Redondo but for days it has seemed way to big and I'm not utilizing it or enjoying it like I once did. My bedroom bugs me the most. I HATE my king size bed--it just exaggerates my loneliness and because I am a packrat like my mother taught me to be, it's one more thing to pile things on.
The furniture in this bedroom is our original marriage furniture circa 1960--good Kohler, dark Danish modern. The king-size Stearns and Foster mattress I bought in 1990, when I was still sharing my bed with a man. Now I share it with a dog. It's firm, like I like, but it's huge, and I fucking hate it. I have mattress envy because so many of my friends are getting Tempur-Pedics and swear it's revolutioninzing their life. Maybe a new double bed. New furniture? Maybe I wouldn't need a shrink anymore?
And I have begun to hate my kewpie collection--I hate all my excessive collections of other things, even the family photos, the books and magazines, and the dozens upon dozens of clothes most of which I never wear anyway. I want to be a minimalist, or at least a dadaist. So much of what I collect, what I do, who I am, is trying to either recapture a childhood I wish I had had, or to relive the one that I did have. I hate having to have my office in my bedroom, but I can't practically return it to the extra bedroom until A. leaves and I'm sure not going to whine to him. He's carrying enough stuff not living with his mom and making his way with his grandma. What is another alternative, I ask myself? Think! What if I had a laptop and the office was buried in the TV room somewhere. NOT!
Only 1 1/2 years until 70. Maybe around this age there should be a "how to" book to "starting over" rather than looking forward to being rotated into scaled-down senior living when you really didn't want to. Maybe I could write this book, with lots of of writing and art exercises, and nice little wisdom quotes in the marginalia like Julie Cameron does. I guess starting over as an older person, however, has so much to do with attitude and perception, not just things. This book would be a changing from within, but also a whole helluva lot of weeding out, or learning to relove that which we've grown too accustomed to. But, I'm really not energetic right now to give much thought to this book--just wouldn't want it to be just another saccharine-tasting self-help book.
This is all really a smokescreen for the gaping hole inside me, made worse by the intestinal flu and the indignity of it all, the archetypal yearning to be somehow accepted and contented regardless of life narrowing down. I live the American dream; what the hell right do I have to question any of the petty stuff I'm ranting about here? But it's so much about purpose. I've been a purpose driven person long before the book came out and the purposes are becoming fewer and further between.
First full day of spring and it is the time of symbolic housecleaning--inner and outer--and I'm living example, my scrawled, almost automatic words point this out to me. Let's face it; I can, at least for now, fend for myself, even in the midst of a messy, non-fatal undignified bout of stomach flu; I can mop up all my own bodily fluids and wash repeated batches of linen. I can heat up soup and if I can't, if I will but ask, someone will help me. No woman is an island, so along with the actual and psychic housecleaning, I've got to stop minimizing myself and ask for help if I need it. No one can read my mind or read the longing beneath the words I actually say or write. I'm so disarming anyhow--irreverent, funny, making everything into a joke and always trying to find meaning in everything. Sometimes there isn't meaning. Sometimes you simply have the stomach flu. Sometimes there are corrupt administrations, unjust wars, gang warfare, ethnic cleansing, rape, robbery, mayhem and injustice galore. And you know what? We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep on keeping on--until we don't.
Too tired to begin the lists of what I can do in the short haul to begin my spring change--at least in my bedroom. But the kewpies must go. I've sold several back on eBay already, but with the exception of a half dozen, the rest are being packed up for Goodwill when I'm perkier. Powerful teachers, these kewpies have been the last 1 1/2 years. You can't go home again. And how know what? I fucking hate selling on eBay, too, but it's one more star in my "Yes, I can do that" crown.
Oh--did I tell you that spring break begins Friday for two full weeks? Wow! Now that's something to look forward to.
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