What I’ve Been Doing, More Specifically
I started Weight Watchers last week, as if I weren’t grumpy enough. It’s time to stop drowning myself in Ghiradelli squares and cheap wine, and I no longer have the excuse of not having enough time to make healthy meals. I love cooking and I’m finally able to do it again. No reason why I can’t substitute butter for cooking spray in a frying pan, is there. I do loathe dieting though. I was born to eat pasta and bruschetta and bread dipped in herbed oil. My best childhood memories involve Italian cookies, potato soup, Fruit Roll-Ups and fried dough. I can put those away for now, or have them only sparingly. I’ve done it before, I can do it again.
I spend a lot of time staring at back roads and blank screens. Sometimes I drive around these unfamiliar streets and I lose myself in the learning of something new, something clean and logical. I don’t know where to go or what to say, or how to say it with any cleverness. My wit’s gone into hibernation and with every word I speak or write, I hear ‘he’s dead’ in the back of my mind. It’s hard to act like myself, worrying about the expectations of others. How it will look, as the grieving widow, if I’m rude or appear to be in too good of a mood. If I speak with my usual sarcasm, will people think I’m ungrateful? Unfortunately my family is receiving the brunt of my mostly-suppressed snarkiness. And the good little Catholic girl hiding in me wonders if my husband is still watching from heaven. I can’t feel him but can he still see me?
I hope that it is ok to “blog back atcha.”
There have been times when I have lost the art of feeling settled. No matter where I was, I felt like I needed to be Somewhere Else. I never could figure out exactly, precisely, where Somewhere Else could be found. I desperately searched for for it, felt a constant yearning to be embraced by it, and anxiously awaited touching it.
I have never found Somewhere Else. It never showed up on my maps and the directions I had were too vague to be followed.
Driving is the perfect way to pass the time while looking for Somewhere Else. The middle distance stare and the constant stimulation of your logical and sensory brain allow your guarded self to almost conjure Somewhere Else.
It appears that Somewhere Else is so simultaneously enticing and frightening that you protectively shift to second person narrative when you describe getting close to it.
Will we shift to the third person if we ever get there? Will that shift signify that we found it? Or will the shift to third person prove that we can never find Somewhere Else?
Melanie
July 5, 2008
Robert would want you to be YOU. Sally down the street might lose her husband and not be able to get out of bed for months. Some people are wallowers, some people are up-with-the-bootstraps. All you can do is be yourself. As long as you aren’t pushing your emotions down to the detrement of your mental health, go with what feels right.
Tracy
July 10, 2008