My father is in the ICU recovering from lung cancer surgery and my husband has pneumonia. Oh, and work is insane. Last night, all I wanted was to lie in bed and read a magazine by myself for 15 minutes. I wanted 15 minutes to myself to lose myself in pictures of anorexic women wearing impossibly high heels with impossibly perfect bodies and lives. For some reason, mindless fashion magazines make me feel better about myself. But the stars weren't aligned, and instead, after spending all day with my napless son and the evening visiting my father in ICU, my son peed in his bed and could not get back to sleep.
Normally. I am gentle and loving and snuggly, but I wanted him to sleep in his bed. I wanted to be alone in my bed to do the aforementioned mind-numbing check out with a $3.00 magazine. But I was needed by a bunch of people I love, so instead I lay in bed next to my son, thinking of the storm, and my mother and how nothing is easy anymore. I squandered my youth and the free time I had before I grew up and became a parent. I let resentments and fear dictate my relationships with people about whom I care deeply, and now they are gone or dying.
Life is short and it is moving ever faster each day. I am an old fart...I honestly believe youth is wasted on the young, I sing out loud to the music played at the grocery store and this morning I told my son to stop what he was doing because he was going to put an eye out.
Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.
1 comment:
Oh, Claire,
You've squandered nothing. All that experience, rightly processed, is like saddle soap for the soul -- even the regretful, humiliating, or just plain horrible stuff. It can either fuel the fire that destroys us or one that illuminates our lives. You're doing a remarkable job of turning all those cow-chip experiences into light!
Elizabeth
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