The other week I went out to dinner with two friends and left Wally at home with the boys. During the middle of the week. AND! I didn't even have a dinner planned for the boys. I know, how cruel and selfish can I get? Never mind you, fellas, mommy's going out with friends for fancy appetizers and cocktails and has no time to think of your nutrition.
It's so rare now that I can get out and away from children and get to be with adults ONLY that when the opportunity finally arises once every blue quarter moon, I become so obsessed with the surreality that I forget I have children to feed. This forgetfulness may also be slightly influenced by repressed passive-aggressive feelings that Wally gets to spend HOURS upon HOURS with adults, speaking of things other than birds, birds, birds, and Nintendo. Now he too can spend time fielding 155,000 questions and observations about birds while coordinating hot pans, boiling water, and sharp knives with Super Mario blaring in the background!
Okay, who the fuck am I kidding? He took the boys to Chick-Fil-A. But what do I care? I'm out with friends, talking over cocktails and shrimp and Spanish olives! Or maybe it was Greek olives, I don't know. All I know is I DIDN'T COOK IT and I LOVE FANCY OLIVES. And then my brain short circuits from the utter adult-ness of the evening.
Then something odd happened at this dinner and I couldn't wait to tell Wally about it when I got home.
Boy, when I tell him about this it will remind him that I'm still a woman and more than just a stay-at-home mom and cook!
Heather drives home later that evening.
Me: Guess what happened tonight!?
Wally: What?
Me: A guy hit tried to hit on me tonight! He came up to us and said he particularly liked women with black hair.
Wally laughs. This is not the reaction I expected.
Wally: Was he old?
Me: Well, yeah, he was a little older.
Wally laughs harder.
The fuck? This is not Wally remembering I'm more than a mom and cook and that other men might still find me attractive. In fact, the idea is so absurd to him that HE'S LAUGHING AT ME. This can't be tolerated.
Me: That's not all! When he realized he wasn't going to get anywhere with us, he said he HAD to go to the bathroom and Susan figured he was going to to the bathroom to beat off.
Wally almost falls out of bed, he's laughing so hard now. This is one of those moments when you wish you didn't have moral objections to throwing hard objects at your spouse, because I was standing in our dressing area with the hair dryer in reach and I have damn good aim.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Complicit
People are kind.
Sometimes I forget this.
There are many kind people who have contacted me one way or another - through mutual acquaintance, through Twitter, Facebook, or the Mouthy Housewives, wanting to know when I'm going to blog again. They miss me, they say. They miss my writing.
All very kind people.
If they only knew.
The writer they miss - I don't know where she is. Or if she'll ever be back. She is so far gone that I've sat here for 20 minutes, trying to find the next words.
It's now been 30 minutes.
There is no elegant way to say this. There is certainly no humorous or irreverent way to write it, which is what I knew. Humor and irreverent writing is what I honed and sharpened. Perhaps too much so. It's quite possible I embraced irreverence just far enough to lose sight of compassion at the exact wrong time.
Three months ago my father shot himself in his backyard.
He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
I feel I'm complicit in a self murder. People will automatically say I'm not complicit. Of course they will say that.
But they don't know.
They don't know of the slow disintegration of our family; the loss of respect, the unkindness witnessed, the ever-growing resentment - the poison between parents that seeped and spread until it tainted everyone close to it.
They don't know of the last conversations I had with my dad. Jesus, those two conversations haunt me. I can barely tell anyone of the things I said to my father those two nights. Those conversations are nightmares I can't wake up from, words I can't unspeak.
Maybe that's why I can't write anymore - I'm now terrified of words.
Sometimes I forget this.
There are many kind people who have contacted me one way or another - through mutual acquaintance, through Twitter, Facebook, or the Mouthy Housewives, wanting to know when I'm going to blog again. They miss me, they say. They miss my writing.
All very kind people.
If they only knew.
The writer they miss - I don't know where she is. Or if she'll ever be back. She is so far gone that I've sat here for 20 minutes, trying to find the next words.
It's now been 30 minutes.
There is no elegant way to say this. There is certainly no humorous or irreverent way to write it, which is what I knew. Humor and irreverent writing is what I honed and sharpened. Perhaps too much so. It's quite possible I embraced irreverence just far enough to lose sight of compassion at the exact wrong time.
Three months ago my father shot himself in his backyard.
He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
I feel I'm complicit in a self murder. People will automatically say I'm not complicit. Of course they will say that.
But they don't know.
They don't know of the slow disintegration of our family; the loss of respect, the unkindness witnessed, the ever-growing resentment - the poison between parents that seeped and spread until it tainted everyone close to it.
They don't know of the last conversations I had with my dad. Jesus, those two conversations haunt me. I can barely tell anyone of the things I said to my father those two nights. Those conversations are nightmares I can't wake up from, words I can't unspeak.
Maybe that's why I can't write anymore - I'm now terrified of words.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)