Eight Years On

Since 2012. Mom still alive. Me, still here. The same. Had to stabilize the foundation of this, not quite, not really my house. So I must use some of my money for retirement, some of mom's money, slowly dwindling. I think I had a date, though, sort of, two years ago. I think he realized I was too old for him. But it was nice to think of him for a week and a half or so.

Does anyone read these, and see how lonely we all are? That poor young man, well, not so young, he is just now suffering the betrayal of his "love of his life,"  a woman of our theatre circle who is no worse or greater than most of the rest of us, but presumably did not feel absolutely faithful to him, and so was utterly faithless. Thus he despairs, and on Facebook, is so in pain. If we were friends, I could reach out to him...give it space and time...but social media throws it all back at you, again and again. I see mine, living his life, fortunately he does not post much, so I only know he is out there, but not with me.

I hate my life right now. Hate my job; the lovely principal left, one of the team left, the kids are so challenging, and now the drive can take an hour. I am exhausted and there is no respite from anything at all.

I hate to be eight years on and no better, nothing to look forward to.

Ha, I can still sign in. Remarkable. My last post is 2009.

My hip was recalled, and thus, redone in the spring of 2011. Now it works as it should have with the replacement in March of 2008.

I am still at the elementary school. Miss part of a tough year because of the hip revision, but the students this year are pretty nice and sometimes I even enjoy them.

My mother is under my care and that is a drain, and probably ultimately keeps me from embarking on things I would rather explore.

Why Ever Not

Not much has changed. M is still lost to me, ever forever. And she who was he who is now a most dear friend is distant and changed, but she is at peace and has a relationship no less. She was unhurt yesterday is what was most assuredly a frightening collision on the highway between Chicago and Indiannapolis I spoke to her; she is with renewed determination to complete her Bollywood screenplay at last.

I am adrift. Trapped here as caretaker to my mother; she is so fragile, her skin tears so easily; her stomach is sensitive, her bones riddled by osteoporosis. A shade of my future.

I spent the fall frantic about my aching leg, but after two xrays and a bone scan I remain without infection, but rather may have developed bursitis in the surgical hip. The surgeon administered a cortisone shot to that hip, which hurt a surprising great deal, and I was without any pain for two or three days. Really no thumb pain, no hip pain, no knee pain. I cannot remember now being without discomfort...just slogging ahead, keep going keep going.

Reality overrated

I have a deliriously happy friend. She deserves her happiness - a new marriage and home, new family, new realizations and contentment coming forward to embrace after years of uncertainty and self-loathing. How she deserves her happiness! And the new river she now swims!

I envy her, my river has become a bitter thing, a lava river full of black stones, evil tides, recriminations and turbulance, unquiet slumbers.

I see a movie, a worthy girl, honest and loving, is mistaken to be a fortune seeker, or worse, and she looses the man she loves, for his sole support is his family, which vows to disown him if he chooses her. Sounds archaic. Sounds Jane Austin. Well, indeed it is. But it was my own story also, in this ridiculous real world. He left me, claiming his family's obsequious objections and those I told the story were agast: surely if he loved you! He loved me or so he claimed, and ruled my heart as surely as any Heathcliff's Cathy (different author but you glean my meaning). My eyes burned with the recognition and waste. I am no Jane Austin to take her pen and write her tears into great novels with heroines who end happily after oh so many trials. No.

Too many set backs that I can no longer find my way round. The lawsuit. The ongoing loss of M, my failure to be the actor I would like to be, the trap of this career that I cannot leave and know it is killing me. My mother's horrifying condition...

I did a staged reading. A little pleasant play, and delighted to render a kiss - a stage kiss, but flesh upon flesh nonetheless and the days and nights and months and years since I was touched awakened that dormant part and has made all this waiting and striving to do what is right seem so useless. I want that kiss- no, I want the promise of the three kisses the actor graced me with in parting as he joined friends and disappeared into the late afternoon. Cheek cheek mouth. The sensation of beard against my lips. An entire world there. All embraces and all promise of embraces to come and yet unknown.

I have known this actor at least ten years, longer, always aching to act with him, for he is quite fine, but self-conscious and absorbed somewhat as we are. So I hadn't thought of him much, and with mutual friends I have tried to see his work, but often found the timing impossible. And that he always seemed to be a bit distant or have a much younger girlfriend...ah. There.

But something he said, forlorn perhaps, he asked me in considerate actor fashion how long the kiss should be - considering scripts and such. Of course a kiss should always last as long as it must last...I commented on the lamentable absence of kissing in my recent past, which he responded with a sadly longer time frame. So I wondered a little- what had he learned during such respite.

What have I learned?

Anthroplasty: T-minus 22 Days

’Kay, since you are just begging to know...(okay, so you don’t give a damn, well insert swear word here).

Hip surgery April 18th. Ten days after my newest best girlfriend receives her new visage (oh, paid for, by the way, by a benefactor, right out of Dickens). We will recover sort of together, only you won’t be able to see my improvement. Just that I will be able to walk and sit and drive and go down the stairs and sleep without this clenching pain that has me on brain fogging anti-inflamatory drugs.

Off the job then through just about the end of the school year.

Am planning a quarter of work for a sub.

Am packing my classroom because my district has decided in its great wisdom to reconfigure all the schools and my grade level (and everyone else with a multiple subject credential)is off the campus and we have no idea as of yet where we might be going, if we are going to the same grade at an elementary school, or what. So if you EVER think that a tenured teacher has any kind of job security, it is no more true than any other job. You might still have a paycheck, but the job may be utterly on the other side of the moon.

I hope it’s the side with the light. Kinda tired of the darkside, no pun intended. I am always going farther and farther away from who I am.

Oh, and my mom is declining. She had two seizures in February and early March, and she’s stable, but not quite all with it.

The result is a lot of weightloss for me, almost as good(?) as the loss of the love of my life. But it’s horrifying and horrible to watch this woman just not have all her brightness about her. And her spinal stenosis is robbing her of mobility.

I would be more articulate, but I have an assessment to write and a shower to take.

Hedda Gabler. Hedda Gabler.

Now I know who she is so much deeper.