I talked with a friend on the phone tonight. It's a welcome distraction to listen to someone else's problems so I don't have to think about mine. Is that selfish? Immersing myself into someone else's story to avoid reading my own? Today was one of those days I would rather have been someone else. Not because anything bad happened. I accomplished the things on my list. By my usual standards, today was a good day. So why did I feel like crap?
The morning started out normal enough. I was thinking about getting things done. Tomorrow I have my first appointment with a doctor under the Medicare regime. I'm going to a new clinic to meet a new doctor at a new healthcare provider system managed by a new insurance company. As I fixed my breakfast, I found myself telling my story aloud, rehearsing, you know how you do that? You don't? Hmm, I guess it's just me then. Embarrassing. As if I'm going to be allotted a couple hours with the new doctor to describe what the past year has been like. As if the poor doctor has time or interest. I have to remember to be especially animated with my eyes and hands, because I'm sure I'll be wearing a mask the entire time.
As I chopped zucchini, I started to feel sad. I haven't told the story for a while. I'd forgotten what I might feel when I remembered the day Mom died. Remembering that day hurt, remembering the look in the nurse's eyes when she gave me the news, how shocked I felt, but what hurt worst of all was remembering the last few months of Mom's life, sitting outside the care home in the cold, trying to keep her with me just a little longer. We bundled her up in fleece. I have photos. She looked like fleece-wrapped bug, six feet away from me, still smiling. We talked about people we used to know, places we used to go. I remember her smiling a lot. She couldn't see me smiling because I was hidden behind my plaid cotton mask.
Today I chopped broccoli and told the story to my empty apartment, rehearsing.
Oh man. Time out to cry. I can't tell you the story of me telling my story to myself without feeling things I don't want to feel. I've been so busy moving here. Now I've stopped moving, there's no place left to go, I'm here, it's time to stop running, which means it must be time to start feeling.
I miss her. I miss those few months when she was alive and happy and I still had a mother. I had a purpose, I had a place, even though I itched for it to be over so I could go live some other life. Now I'm in that other life and it hasn't coalesced yet into something I recognize. I don't know who I am, I don't know where I am, I don't know where I'm going.
Does anyone, really? We pretend like we are the masters of our fates, the grand designers of our lives. We don't know anything.
Yesterday I ran an errand for a friend. As I was driving to the pharmacy, I heard that dreaded sound, the ding my car makes when it is trying to get my attention to tell me something is wrong. Ding. That horrible ding has meant the car is about to siphon $500 more dollars out of my dwindling bank account. Fingernails on a blackboard.
I stopped at a light and peered at the dashboard. I didn't see any lights, so I was like, what is up with this car? Is it a existential cry for help? A bit of automotive angst expressed through a plaintive ding? Then I saw in the little odometer window a word had replaced the mileage number. It looked like the message was 9ASCAP.
You probably see it right away. I did not. After hearing that sound, my brain cells had gone into freefall. ASCAP! Nine of them! Have I violated musicians' rights somehow?
When I got to the pharmacy, I dug out my phone, Googled 9ASCAP, and started laughing. Right on! Gascap. The 9 was actually a lowercase g. My brain had failed to parse the letters correctly. I blame grief, old age, early dementia, and fear of economic insecurity. Any or all, take your pick.
I went into the pharmacy and picked up the thing for my friend. When I came out, I checked my gas cap, and sure enough, it was loose. My beast! I screwed it back into place. The light didn't go off right away, but I drove gamely forward, and it went off somewhere between the pharmacy and home.
