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My Profile
She blinded him with whiteness - 2008-07-25
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8:58 a.m. - 2008-05-14
Wow, did I have a snit on yesterday! Along with the previous post's upset I had a grand mal breakdown over, of all things, a scuzzy bar. Mick had taken a couple of personal days so we could attend to a buttload of errands and meetings with people who don't work weekends or evenings. We were on our way to our last stop and were ahead of schedule to be back for Wolf's bus so we took the scenic route through Malltown. With that abrupt way cities have the lovely garden-y residential neighborhood gave way to a rather unsavory commercial district. Waiting at an intersection I got the smirks over the high falutin' name of the cruddy dive on the corner. Just as I was wondering what kind of low-lifes would go to such a place Mick laughed and launched into a story about a time when he and his sister had gone there. The story was amusing enough, but instead of laughing I burst into tears. It had suddenly struck me that I didn't have any funny stories from my misspent youth. I'd never had a youth, misspent or otherwise. The lack of life in my life crashed in on me and I was mad. Pissed off, heartsick, and unbearably sad. I could count the times I'd been to a drinking house on my fingers and toes. A good dozen of them happened during the last couple years when I was running with Mo. What the fuck had I done with my life? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I'd never been anywhere. No silliness. No adventures. No fun. Too busy working and being a 'good person'. Whatever the fuck that meant. Yes, I'd made the choice to be a wife at 19 and a mother at 21, but I had no idea of what I was robbing myself of. Just how many opportunities I'd closed the door on. And all during my wife-ing and my momming I was a self-abnegating, self-sacrificing idiot too. All in the name of being a 'good person'. Right. And what had all that good person shit gotten me? Nothing. Education? Nope. Mike has a degree. A degree he doesn't use. A degree he was able to attain because asshole me worked 80 hours a week to keep him in school. Alex has an education too. Because asshole me sent the majority of my scanty inheritance to SUNY. So my son who can't be bothered to speak to me could have the college education I never got. Travel? Nice things? New cars? Nope. Nope. Nope. Feh. I could go on for pages. Upshot is I wasted my life. All that denial and work and taking a miss on the fun was for nothing. I could have had a life of my own and it would have washed out the same. But instead of finding myself here fat, 45 and floundering with nothing behind me but an empty slog of miserable responsibility and idiot sainthood I'd be here with funny stories of my own to tell. I'd have souvenirs and photo albums and maybe even a few scars. I'd have enough life lived under my belt to make now more bearable. I've often said I don't envy people for their things. I don't covet their hard bodies or their toys. And it's true, I don't. What I do envy is other people's experiences. I get sick and small souled over their adventures. I am dead dog jealous of their freedom. I put myself in the workhouse and it was for nothing. A life of doing the 'right thing' netted me zilch. An unused passport, 45 years of sobriety, good citizenship and PTA meetings, and a whole lot of nothing else. I cried and cried and cried. Mick tried to comfort me but what could he say? He and his ex had been everywhere together. Mick had done his carousing. He had his collections and his hobbies and his funny stories. He knew it too. My lovely man tried to promise me that my time was coming. He and I would go on trips to exotic places and get smashed at skanky bars. He promised, promised, promised that I'd get to Vegas. The world awaits and we will go and do. Hang on, Baby, you and I will burn it up someday, he said. I knew it was bullshit. He knew I knew it was bullshit, but I let him mop my tears and I gave him an "All better now" smile. I know I'm being defeatist. I know I'm a self-pitying jerk. I know I have choices and that Wolf graduates high school a scant 8 years from now. But I also know this… The stone truth is 'Someday' never comes for uber-responsible assholes like me.
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