Accounting for Time Spent
It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally this body wears me down to the point that I need to have a good cry, and I hit that point last night. Best if I don’t think about it too much, lest I feel trapped. There is the internal self, with so many wants and desires yet unfulfilled, and the body it inhabits, constantly finding new ways to make me miserable.
He asks about my obsession with memory. Surely this is part of it, the fact that I feel all of my adventures are behind me (unless something changes with my health). But the truth is that I’ve always been wired this way. Even my senior thesis was centered around two themes - memory and repetition.
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We had a stupid and regrettable spat - one that started as a discussion about something inane and ended with us both saying things we shouldn’t have. I still don’t understand how simple conversations can sometimes take such big detours. I mean, I do understand, I just wish we both had a better handle on our faults.
By the next evening all was well. The kids were both out, as they often are these days, soaking up the last bit of summer vacation. He cooked dinner and we watched several Tiny Desk Concerts. He picked up an excellent bottle of reposado, something recommended by a customer. We drank and had one of the long, deep, easy conversations that remind we really do communicate well most of the time.
Almost every day since has been spent in varying degrees of pain. Thankfully I was already planning to work from home this week.
I bought a new sundress online, something I justified as necessary for survival in the August heat, but in reality was purchased because it is pretty and I deserve to feel pretty while wearing it. I might be in pain but at least I am still capable of looking nice. I also bought paccheri, because I can no longer find it in town, and Art at the Turn of the Millennium, an old textbook I had lost somewhere along the way and wanted to replace. Three seemingly unrelated purchases, but they each bring me a little bit of joy.
Sometimes I don’t know what to make of this space, or why I still write here after 20+ years. Maybe it just helps to acknowledge the things that sting and to get them off of my chest.
10:30 a.m. - 2023-08-09