The previous entry was a "place-keeper" for me, not a whole entry. I wanted to write about it more fully. It seemed important to me at the time, and I didn't have time to explore it fully then. And now I can't remember why it seemed so important. I still think it's true, though, and interesting.
I haven't kept up with this journal over the holidays, and I don't know why. Lack of time, for one reason, I guess, plus all kinds of conflicting emotions, so that anything I might want to say one day, I'd be wanting to retract the next day, so better to put nothing in writing.
The weekend before Christmas I visited Daughter in New Jersey on Friday. Then on Saturday, had a full turkey-type holiday dinner with six friends at the new widow's home (I'm going to have to find some other way to identify her - how 'bout I call her "May"?). For some reason, I was hitting on all cylinders that evening. I tend to be quiet and three beats behind everyone else, plus not everyone gets my dry humor. But that evening, I had everyone cracking up with lightening fast one-liners all evening. Like May said something about what's the chances of her cooking a whole turkey for herself, in reference to having us all over for dinner, and NJKC said "About the same as my cooking a turkey for myself", and I said "About the same as my cooking a turkey for anybody!", and the table roared. It's enough to make one paranoid. Is my lack of culinary skills so well known?
Daughter, you'll remember Dirty Dave? He was there, and he was talking about how he remembers you when you were seven or eight, and how you seemed to be leary of him, "because she didn't know what to think of an adult who wanted to play with her on her level." I always feel a need to slap him down, so after he'd said that twice, (and he has said it before on other occasions, this particular evening he was trying to impress a new girlfriend) I explained to him that it wasn't that at all, but that you have a rather large personal space, and he intruded heavily on it without invitation. That surprised him and shut him up. I wasn't simply using you, I happen to think it's true. (Also, even at seven, your "level" was already higher than his. But I didn't say that.) His statement offended me not only because it wasn't true, but because it implied that I didn't play with you, which was insensitive of him. And the reason I always feel like I have to slap him down every time I see him is that he is always and always has been insensitive toward me. And I never slap first. Hmmm. Maybe I'm not ready to write here yet.....
Sigh.
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The Wednesday before Christmas I drove to Rochester to visit Jay's Dad on Thursday. It was nice to see him, he looked and sounded better than I expected. But I also got the impression that he felt very much a lack of control over his life, like that he felt superfluous in his own life. Nothing he said, nothing in particular, just a look about him. Maybe a sadness. If I were a better daughter-in-law, I'd keep in touch more. He hugged me so hard when I left I wanted to fold him up into my bag and smuggle him home. (Wouldn't work. We'd hate each other within a week. If only because I hate the kitchen, and food is important to him. I'll never forget the time he arrived unannounced one morning, and I tried to give him leftover chicken vegetable stir fry for lunch, and he frowned and said "That doesn't sound like a proper lunch", and I had to go to the Cornucopia Deli and bring him home a turkey sandwich. I was steamed! Not a proper lunch indeed!!) He's going to get a real nose this week. Maybe when his glasses sit better, and he can see better, he will feel more connected. I hope.
Again, for the umpteenth time, I neglected to record the mileage or time. I think it took about 5 hours to go via the thruway, and 5.75 hours to return via Binghamton and thence through the mountains around the reservoirs - a longer drive, but much more interesting, important when you're tired.
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The Wednesday after Christmas I had lunch with a friend I used to work with umpteen years ago. She transferred south ten years ago, and comes back every Christmas to visit her family. Although we don't have a lot in common any more, I'll probably want to keep her forever, if only because she was the first (and only) person I told when I discovered Jay loved me, and she was sort of the relationship midwife. She's my connection to the beginning, and she has kept the same romantic soul.
She had a rough childhood, too, and mentioned how things are getting better with her siblings. I commented on how no one seems to escape childhood unscathed. Some people seem to have the most idyllic beginnings - like Jay. Perfect neighborhood, parents who loved each other, comfortable home, didn't move or change schools ever, siblings who didn't fight, loving grandmother down the street - like something from a 50s family show. And yet Jay had some deep emotional scars that caused him great sorrow and confusion. I think if you look hard enough at almost anyone, everyone has scars from their childhood that affect them all their lives. I think that people who had the idyllic-seeming childhoods may have it worse than those of us who KNOW our lives were hell, because they have nothing to point to, to say "this is why". They don't know why they feel so bad. Because they know their childhood was so good, they feel a duty to defend it. Because they know they had it good, they figure it's something lacking in themselves. She and I know exactly why we're messed up, we know it came from outside, and so we are better equipped to redesign ourselves in a better image.
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I had an invitation to a New Year's party in Poughkeepsie, but didn't go. It seemed like too much trouble when there wasn't anyone there I really wanted to be with. Man, when it gets cold out, I get antisocial.
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I got so upset that the US was pledging only 35 million for tsunami relief (when the Iraq mess is costing 10 million an hour!) that I went to the Network for Good and donated "a very large amount" to Doctors Without Borders. But it bothered me that it didn't hurt to do that. So the next day I donated an equal amount through Amazon.com. Then it felt like I'd sacrificed. (It also hurt because only after I'd pressed the button did I find out I'd sent this huge amount to the bleepin' Red Cross! The Red Cross is not one of my favorite charities for a variety of reasons, but maybe in a case like this they'll do it right.)
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I've stayed in motels a few times over the past few weeks. I know I bloat when I travel - I've learned to be careful what clothing I take on a trip, because I often find nothing fits the same way more than four hours away from home.
I was not prepared this time for how unforgiving motel mirrors are. I know I'm carrying too much weight. When I look in the mirror at home, I don't think I look too very bad, I just wish I were a bit lighter. When I looked in the motel mirrors, I was horrified! I've got dimples everywhere! My body looked downright sloppy. It quite literally made me feel sick. I need to lose 40 pounds, ASAP!
I'm feeling very unhappy with my appearance these days. I used to catch a glimpse of myself in passing, in a mirror or a store window, and I didn't always recognize myself, because the person I saw was pretty. She moved well. I was always pleased when I recognized her as me. Even as recently as 2002 I was pleased with my appearance. Now, suddenly, I avoid glancing at reflections. It looks like the ghost of my grandmother is stalking me. My neck is loose. My face is pudgy and I've got droopy jowls. The skin above my eyelids is starting to fall. My nose is getting bigger - partly from age, and partly because the hole in the septum is getting bigger, which causes it to cave at the tip and spread. I wonder if it's because I stopped the estrogen in mid 2002. Could it really happen that fast? Luckily, I'm still good with makeup.
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After all these years, I've finally figured out why I have the hole in my nose. I don't often think about how I was addicted to APCs in my late teens and twenties. I used to take so much my ears buzzed. My nose had always bled when I got hit, of course, but it eventually bled on its own, spontaneously. I used to wake up with a pillow full of blood, or major clots in my throat. It would form clots in my nose during the day, or huge scabs that I would have to clear out to be able to breathe. That's how the hole formed. It still bleeds sometimes at night, but only a little bit, especially in the winter. Vaseline helps, but feels icky, so I mostly forget to use it. I always thought it was just fragile blood vessels (a familial problem), but now I realize it was the APCs. Aspirin can cause bleeding. The APCs probably had a lot to do with my monthly hemorrhages, too (although they continued after I quit the pills, so I don't know...).
Odd, the things you realize when you have the leisure to think about them. Or when you finally give yourself permission to see clearly.
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