Entry #676176, added on 11-14-09 @ 8:38 pm EST
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Woke up with the certainty that I am living in Washington, or somewhere equally grey and wet.
I couldn't shake it all day, felt like I were anywhere but here, and the depersonalization was jarring. Ever have one of those days, the kind in which you don't relate to the walls around you, like the air you breathe is coming from a foreign part of the planet, or a different decade? Tell me I'm not the only one.
We walked to the library because I need more exercise than I have been getting as of late. I sit and read a textbook for five hours a day, and then I come home and sit while I check with my email, at which point I rise and make dinner, only to sit while I consume it while watching some kind of dissatisfying television. Then, I sit some more after the wee one retires for the evening because that's when I get to 'relax'. As a result of all of this, my tailbone (coccyx, I'll have you know) has been hurting like a devil. I wince when I am lying on my back in the bed, because the ache comes for me when I least expect it, so I sit up and find myself shifting back and forth trying to find a way to sit which will not feed the pain or twist my spine into an 'S' shape. S for scoliosis.
I took out 'Atonement' by Ian McEwen and 'Wilderness Tips' by Margaret Atwood, and listened to a teenaged girl breathlessly express to the librarian how vital it is that she be put on the waiting list for 'Twilight', which apparently is never available at any of the eight or so local libraries. I felt for her, because she genuinely seemed distressed, but not enough to go out and buy the book, I suppose. I do miss that fanaticism, though, the kind I used to feel when I was younger in which fairly useless things made me weak with need. It was kind of magical, longing for something that didn't ultimately matter, because when it didn't happen, it left only a small dent. You grow out of those wounds without the etch of a scar, and only look back with a small sense of amusement and embarrassment. Like how I feel about when I heard John Taylor from Duran Duran was engaged. I was absolutely inconsolable, like he'd actually broken my heart in several places, instead of acknowledging the reality that we not only didn't know one another on any level, but that even if we did, I would have only been a slightly chubby, spotty fourteen-year-old to his drug-addled, super-coiffed twenty-five-year-old. There had never been any merit to my misery, but that I felt like I could be so desolate without contemplating that I might have a mental disorder was kind of wonderful. I no longer weep for the loss of John because I get that it was pubescent illusion, and it was a kind of delicious that went bitter before becoming kind of sweet again.
I watched the author of 'Twilight', Stephanie Meyer, on Oprah yesterday. I have to say that I was kind of impressed by her for a few reasons. First, she seems to be entirely comfortable with the fact that she's more a storyteller than a 'writer', which in my point of view, are two different things. Second, the whole 'saga' came to her in a dream, and she wrote it for herself without intending it to be read by anyone else. Third, she appears to be incredibly normal and without pretension, which I tend to feel more comfortable with. She wanted to tell a story, but she wasn't overly concerned about the art, and I guess I can live with that. This doesn't mean I intend to read the books, despite every woman over thirty I know hounding me to do so, but I have to say I found Ms. Meyer to be kind of inspiring. All you need to do is take an idea and work it into shape. All you need is to get off your ass and do it. It might amount to something, and your coccyx might hurt less.
Today was also a Meryl Streep sort of day. It started when I got home from the library and spread cherry jam on some soft, french bread. I flipped on the television to 'The Bridges of Madison County', which will always have a special place in my list of film favourites because so much of that film parallels what I went through with M. back when I was still officially someone else's girl. The difference being, of course, that I decided to follow my heart whereas the character of Francesca elects to stay with her family out of a sense of duty. I have cried a few times at the scene where Francesca is trying to decide whether or not to run from her husband's truck and into Robert's, the photographer she loves, because I know that agony. I remember how four days ended for me with my love driving away and my not knowing if we'd ever be together. That is a kind of torture the inexperienced should never criticize, in my view. Live it, learn it. Anyway, when the wee one woke up and correctly identified 'Francesca' as 'Sophie's mother!' from 'Mamma Mia', I flipped the channel and landed on 'One True Thing', the movie in which Streep plays the well-meaning mother who is dying of cancer while her selfish, pouty and condescending daughter begrudgingly assumes responsibility for her care. Depressing, and every time I feel badly for her, even though it's just a story. I then checked to see what movie is on tonight that M. and I may watch together and it looks like 'Doubt' will be premiering on the movie channel, which delights me to no end. Meryl as a nun. We had Meryl the philandering housewife, Meryl the dying housewife, and we're going for Meryl the God's wife tonight. I am oddly excited about this. It's been a while since I've seen a decent film and Streep seldom disappoints, other than when she was in 'She-Devil'. I still don't know what that was all about.
Everyone is already completely into Christmas around me. All over my street are houses with plastic snowmen that light up, sitting next to shrivelling, decaying jack-o'lanterns that haven't been composted yet. My sister has already finished her Christmas shopping and went on and on about how she's normally finished by the end of October but was late this year, and the whole time I was trying to ignore my twisting stomach, knowing that this Christmas will be more financially stressful than any other Christmas in my life. She doesn't seem to grasp this about me, though, and neither does my friend K., who goes silent on the phone whenever I talk about the fact that I can't visit or buy gifts until next year at least. I always hope that someone will say something like 'oh, that's okay, we totally understand and it will get better, don't worry!', but people with money don't always have much compassion for those without the means to reciprocate. My sister is married to someone who makes over a hundred thousand dollars a year, as is my friend K., so they aren't on my wavelength. They think M. should just pay for everything, that my contributions to the home shouldn't necessarily be equal because I'm the 'woman', the one who 'gave birth', and it bothers me a lot that they think this because it makes me bitter when I shouldn't be. M. doesn't make that kind of money, and even if he did, why should I be able to siphon it without question? What I can't afford in terms of household expenses he has picked up without complaint while I go to school. I don't think this would fly if I decided to be a stay-at-home mom while the wee one was off at school. Why do I need to be home when she's not even here?
Still, I miss the freedom of money. I miss buying a tube of lipstick on a whim or buying the largest, sweetest blended coffee on the menu. Even if M. offers to buy these things for me, there is always a sense of guilt inside. I am slightly jealous of my sister and friend because they are oblivious and can afford to be. While a lack of money has the potential to build character, I'm not in a place where I can say I am grateful for it entirely. All I can hope for is that I can take Christmas back and make it my own. I want it to feel like a holiday rather than a nuisance, and I want the food to be delicious and the music to bring back all the dead holidays of my past, the ones where I really felt special and safe. I don't want it to be about feeling like I should have more and that I should be giving more. Somehow, it's become that in my world and I don't like it.
I need to visit a dentist soon, and I need a new computer. I need clothes that fit me better, and I would like some of them to be red. I want a new bedspread, something rich and warm, and I would like to have many different varieties of cereal in the cupboard. I would like to eat in a restaurant with M. and order something artful and delicate, and I want to buy the expensive cheese when I go to the grocery store. I prefer Pantene to Finesse and I need a new purse.
All in good time. Until then, I will enjoy the simple pleasures of books, watching Meryl, a cup of strong tea and a pillow under my achy coccyx. I know that the happiness of these things for me completely outweigh the fleeting happiness of my contemporaries who seem to only find joy in shopping carts and the sound of a register whirring. I still laugh a lot, whereas they always sound bored and disengaged; tired. I'm not trying to see misery in them either; it's on the surface, like the settled skin on top of hot chocolate.
Ooooh, hot chocolate. See, my heart is full again.
I am here, it is not Washington, and somewhere beyond the limits of my yard, I hear coyotes howling. It is ominous, but I feel like I know where I am, and I know how to live here.
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Content Rating Notice: Recommended for Readers 18 Years and Older Only
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