It’s difficult these days for me to feel comfortable writing
anything that’s not part of a welter of comments and posts; to write something
that’s not tied by however slender a thread to some fuzzily defined consensus
of my friends on Facebook. Well, that’s not exactly true—I do write
contradictory or curmudgeonly posts, but only when I know I might have secret
support. I might, for instance, gently mock some absurd “New Age” idea,
especially if it’s just a “meme,” and not actually composed by a Facebook friend
to express her deep convictions.
Facebook aside, there’s this huge VOID. Yes, the void. The
abyss. But it’s a very foggy one. For all I know, the drop could be about five
feet into some mud. Or, it could be infinite and cold and full of meaningless stars.
There’s not much within me these days to get me motivated; and I can tell that
what is there is merely intellectual—a few thoughts to keep me clinging to
future possibilities of interest. But there is no real emotional need,
yearning, repulsion, or discernment between one or another activity, or even
between one or another person. Well, that’s not exactly true—I do have my
preferences. Even when I’m just “hanging out,” I rarely do it with more than
one person, or for more than two consecutive hours. That I can be with my
husband for days is a given; it’s a condition, not a challenge. Yes, I take him
for granted, and I am grateful to be able to do that. I do try to occasionally
show him I care.
With retirement envisioned to happen in less than a year now,
I’m no longer invested feelingly in work. I have neither the bursts of
compassion nor muffled fits of fury that I used to have. I just want to get
through the day. This is not really “me” anymore.
And my body is slow and achy; it’s no longer eager. It wants
to lie down all the time. It wants to eat, drink, and be slothful. My mind
wants to avoid stress or focusing.
I have a hazy sense of “unfairness” regarding my mother
being gone, just when she was beginning to mellow, and to offer loving that
wasn’t conditional (nevertheless with religious admonitions attached). It took
long enough! I supposed I’d become a little more receptive, too. One of the
last things she said to me was, “You guys were an interesting bunch.” Faint,
but welcome praise, at long last.
I have a lot I can do. I can watch pretty-good new series on
the computer. I can take up Scene Study classes again, and am trying to do so
without paying by just being involved in the one scene from “I Love You, I Love
You Not” with 14-year-old Sue. I can think about my collaged-artifacts art
project that I hope to do for next spring. I can consider starting that book
about my mother that I so wanted to write immediately after her death. But
these days I don’t have any strong feeling of wanting to do anything. And that
makes me worry. I hope it will come back—some kind of wanting—however ludicrous
or inappropriate it might be. Better some crazy, rickety bridges across the
abyss than just standing on its edge, staring and wondering, and ultimately
being utterly bored by the fog with which it’s apparently filled.
