January 9, 2005

• Back to....Normal?

  
  

   What on earth will I do with myself when things "get back to normal"? Someone asked me this not so long ago. I don't think things ever really do become "normal", not in my life anyway!

  
  

  When the house deal is all done, my settlement all cleared up, my divorce final, my beloved car repaired....it it will be time to: relax? Nope. Find a suitable place to store my belongings as they have to be out of the house by January 31st. , move my belongings to storage, find a moving company for my apartment furniture, start packing....etc. Never mind all the work that will need to be done when I finally get into the place! Phone, cable, gas hook up, hot water, change of address (again), and probably one million and six other things that I haven't thought of yet.

  
  

  This is when something happens to me that I call "deer in the headlights syndrome". Sometimes I start to feel so overwhelmed by everything that I simply can't move. I can't go forward, I can't go backward. I am immobilized. No fight or flight response, I freeze. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it gives me a chance to recoup my energy which is exactly what I did yesterday. I completely neglected taking care of any of the numerous tasks at hand. I slept in until noon as I had a bad night of troublesome dreams. I then ran away and did nothing even remotely practical or useful. I drove to Port Perry and drank in the scenery. I had an unhealthy (but yummy) lunch/dinner of fish and chips in a local restaurant. I looked in some of their eclectic shops. Then I headed to the crowded, smoky casino and lost my worries (but luckily not my cash) in the crowd. The table games were packed and only a few slots were free. I had  brought two hundred dollars with me that I had earmarked this month for "whatever". I had some remarkable luck with quite a few nice wins and also my largest single win ever of 1000 dollars! (my dear friend Audrey who has known me for over twenty years always claimed I was born with horseshoes up my *ss!) That win was on a nickel machine of twenty lines with one nickel bet per line! The money will definately come in handy, but even if I hadn't won it was nice to get completely away from everything familiar and not even think for a moment about everything that keeps whirling around inside my neurotic brain, even if only for a few hours. Actually it was more than a few hours, I didn't get home until the wee hours.

  
  

  So why then am I up so early? Sleep doesn 't come easily to me, even when I am tired. Back here in ghetto land reality doesn't take long to come crashing back. I am no longer immobilized though, I am ready to gather myself up and head back into the fray.

  
  

  My mother's birthday is coming up next week. I want to stop by and bring her some flowers this afternoon. I don't know what kind of reaction I will get. Neither my mother or father has spoken to me since before Christmas, the last time I went to see them.

  
  

  I had a sad thought. If I don't give them my new address when I move in May, they won't even know where I am. Blood is thicker than water indeed! I don't know yet whether or not I will tell them about the house today. I will play it by ear.

  
  

  The house inspection is tomorrow. I am praying that everything goes well and there is nothing dreadfully wrong with it. It would be very hard to have to start looking all over again after being this close. I am so excited that the old hound is finally going to get to see the house tomorrow. He will either love it or hate it, and I really have no idea which one it will be.

  
  

  I now have to go grocery shopping, come back and tidy myself up and then go see my parents. Isn't it awful to be a grown middle aged woman who is nervous about seeing her own parents? I would never have believed I would be in this situation if someone had told me even a year ago.

  
  

  Merline says when I come out of all this I will know I can handle anything and will be a stronger person for it. Strength is good, but I don't want to become hard or cynical. I still want to hold onto my somewhat rose coloured way of looking at the world. That being said, I joined the Canadian Federation of Poets this week and see that they are calling for submissions for their anthology. The topic was (and I am paraphrasing here) about the "brighter side of life". I leafed through my collection of ditties and was a bit mortified to find nothing terribly cheerful in my latest efforts. They were downright dark and somewhat dismal. That is not a reflection of how I am feeling. I just seem to explore the dirt under the rock rather than the rock itself when I write.  Perhaps I don't have anything to say about the good, cheerful stuff. Maybe it speaks for itself. Anyway, Hallmark would definately not be hiring me based on my latest works!

  • 12:12 pm
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