The house is quiet. As much as I love my family, and I do, I cherish time by myself.
At least, I think it’s Nov. 4. I’m grabbing a moment before going over to the college to write in this journal. The days fly by, headed south for the winter.
Miles is going to be eleven at the end of the week. He’s turned into a tall, scholarly looking type, with horn-rimmed glasses covering big, brown eyes.
We bought him a jacket he’d wanted, and a pocket knife. I may look for some other thing, not sure what, though. Better get some wrapping paper, too.
I finally got my period, after not having one since last spring. Something to do with the heat, I think. But it scared me, made me realize what it will be like when I finally lose my chance at reproducing, for good. Meanwhile, my sister is pregnant once more and is still talking about moving out here.
The house is quiet. As much as I love my family, and I do, I cherish time by myself. I’m still torn with conflicts, but at least at the moment, I don’t feel so pressured by the Superego.
And my sister told me a horrible story about our neighbor, Jerry Hurley. He became a bomb squad cop, which I wasn’t aware of. At any rate, he and his partner got called to a Roslindale driveway, where some guy had found a bomb. The guy owed $150,000 to some unhappy person. One of the bomb squad guys kicked the box, supposedly. Kaboom! One half of Jerry went in one direction, the other half into particle physics. Neither guy was wearing his bomb suit.
I remember Jerry because I used to babysit for him and his wife Cynthia. Jerry was Cynthia’s second husband. Her first husband died one winter night on icy roads as he was driving the baby sitter home. Cynthia had two young boys with this first husband and Jerry adopted them. I remember Jerry paying me after he and Cynthia returned from an evening down at the Knights [of Columbus]. He always had a slightly foolish grin on his face at such times.
It’s only just now that I realize how happy Cynthia must have been to have a babysitter right next door.
Considering how she must have felt about the prospect of losing Jerry, I keep wondering why he joined the bomb squad, a notoriously risky job. She and Jerry had two kids of their own, daughters, the youngest 18 now.
They say Jerry died five hours after the explosion. I had a dream about him last night and he kept saying, look on the mantel. Look on the mantel for what, Jerry?
Got to go. The birds are chirping outside my window, while the stand-up fan is whirring gently back and forth in the next room.
I was stunned by the beauty and gracefulness of my skeleton. I’m a big person, whose body reveals none of this delicacy on the outside. My eye traced the shoulder blades and the winged arcs of the ribcage.
I am sitting in the kitchen, around two in the morning. I’d woken up gasping for air, my throat sore and my head pounding. Here at the table are bills and a box of tissues, a cup of chamomile tea, and of course me and this journal.
This last week was a nightmare. Last Monday night we went down to the emergency room. I was filled with little demons attacking my lymph nodes, yet what bothered me more was the persistent, nagging pain that hummed in my chest.
The doctor was a young woman named Brown. She had blonde hair and a friendly manner. I was sweating with fear as she checked my breasts for lumps. She sent me down to X-ray. I wandered through the hallways alone, following the yellow X-ray, warning: radiation signs until I found a lone young black girl in a blue robe.
She beckoned me toward a row of stalls where patients exchanged their upper clothes for a useless paper wrap. This tissue shirt stuck out horizontally from my chest, which gave rise, so to speak, to a long monologue from this girl about how much the men technicians enjoyed this job during the day.
She pushed me against a wall, my back to her. “Dachau”, I thought. “Auschwitz.” I think there was a flash, but I can’t remember.
After she was done I walked over to the light box and waited for the results. She kept talking and I noticed then that there was absolutely no smell in the air, except maybe my fear.
She slipped the developed X-rays on the light box. We were both bathed in the blue light of my interior. So this was a photograph of the place that I unconsciously had always thought held my soul.
I was stunned by the beauty and gracefulness of my skeleton. I’m a big person, whose body reveals none of this delicacy on the outside. My eye traced the shoulder blades and the winged arcs of the ribcage.
I was grateful that my mortality was being revealed to me by this young, chattering black woman. But she had grown silent, too.
We both stared at the X-rays, and the thought occurred to me, she is looking at these with a professional eye. What does she see that I don’t?
I looked more closely at the screen. Was there some shadow or speck that meant something ominous?
She said, “You can get dressed now.” I listened intently to her tone, a dog listening to the voice of its master. All I heard was Mississippi coating her vocal cords with honey. Obediently I shuffled back to my closet.
I had my purse slung over one shoulder - the technician had been quite adamant that I not let go of my purse. “People take things around here,” she said. “You just can’t turn your back for a second.”
She handed me my X-rays in a brown paper folder. Out in the main hallway the air felt colder and I walked as quickly as I could. My hear buzzed with fever and crazed thoughts. Why had I ever smoked? What would the blood test say? What [Why] did it feel as if the whole world had put its full weight in the pit of my stomach so it had become the fulcrum point of the universe.
I couldn’t hear anything, not even the sound of my own feet sliding along the linoleum. A man in a white lab coat swung round the next corner, loping towards me with a slight smile on his face. His hair was carrot-colored and rose from his head like a funnel cloud. His smile faded as his eyes caught mine for a brief fraction of time. If he was a funnel cloud, I was at that moment a black hole moving along the corridor. It was best to avoid me.
All of a sudden I don’t care if my face shows the years. I earned every one of them. And I thank God every day for the happiness I’ve had.
Thanksgiving Day. I sit here at four in the morning with my lower backache, my fatigue, my night-sweats, my bottle of aspirin and my cup of ice-water. Such is middle age.
All of a sudden I don’t care if my face shows the years. I earned every one of them. And I thank God every day for the happiness I’ve had. Life is not a contest to see how much you end up with when you die.
What I’ve learned recently:
If you’re sick, stay home in bed.
Call the pharmacist; she knows the bottom line.
Don’t let anybody define well-being for you.
A couple of tabs of Benadryl can make the difference between sleep and no sleep.
Americans, including this one, eat too much crap. We eat too much, period.
After dinner, get exercise. Don’t hit the Lazyboy.
My body is extremely sensitive to medicine. 600 mg of amoxicillin and I’m climbing the walls. Half a tab of Motrin and I feel like death is at the door.
I sleep better during the day than I do at night.
I feel sorry for myself, but mostly I worry about the economic implications. I am alone with my feelings in all this. I sit at night and cry at the kitchen table after Peter and Miles have gone to bed.
I had pictured myself working for the rest of my life. That’s the only way I figured we could get by.
It’s a little after midnight. We ended up spending a good part of the day in bed. Peter cooked our meal: turkey, stuffing, and cheese potatoes. Everything was wonderful.
We watched movies on the VCR and enjoyed the cool fall breeze that blew in through the open front window.
The last few years have been an awakening to harsh economic realities. The S&L crisis sent the whole real estate market here into a downward spiral. Six years of paying on this house and it’s not worth what we paid for it. The old folks tell me the market will go back up. Great, if we can hold onto the house that long.
We spent our lives doing the right things and they’ve robbed us — picked our pockets clean. The Congress flip-flops every year on legislation. There is no clear path any longer, like there was for our parents.
And then there is the matter of Pick’s disease. Last week I met with a therapist, who told me I have a 50/50 chance of getting it. So does my sister and my brother.
I feel sorry for myself, but mostly I worry about the economic implications. I am alone with my feelings in all this. I sit at night and cry at the kitchen table after Peter and Miles have gone to bed. I had pictured myself working for the rest of my life. That’s the only way I figured we could get by. We certainly won’t have any pension and they say Social Security is a joke.
It’s all a game, I keep telling myself.
My sister didn’t call me today. I don’t mind, but it reinforced my sense of being alone. And Jeff was supposed to come over. I guess I never really thought he would — or Royce either. It’s released me from any sense of going to ASU to study English. I’ve come to one of those moments when I decide enough is enough. If Jeff couldn’t get over his neurosis about Peter and Miles … well, the hell with it. I guess I should just let go.
And Stinky disappeared. I suspect she got hit by a car. We went out and looked for her but there wasn’t any sign of her. I left an open can of cat food in case she wanders back, but I doubt it.
So I guess I’m a little depressed. But on the other hand, I think I really didn’t want company or phone calls today. I don’t really want to be responsible for those people. I want my sister to maintain her independence from me. I grew stifled when Jeff was around here all the time. I wonder if he’s even figured out that I purposely scared him off. I like people, enjoy my friends, but find myself oppressed in the presence of too much company.
I don’t think I was really very happy in my role of big sister. I don’t think by nature I like being held responsible for other people; at least, not if I don’t have some corresponding power to be effective.
Anyway, I’m finally getting a little tired. I’ve inherited sleeplessness from my father and grandmother. I can remember my father getting by on four hours of sleep regularly and Helena always wandering through the house at night when we stayed with her. People who live life as if they were shot from cannons, day after day.
Outside, a dog is barking. It’s cold out tonight.
We drove to the video store a couple of hours ago to return our movies. The streets were unusually quiet. I guess everyone’s at home, sleeping off the giant meal.
I didn’t overeat today, but I ate more than I have in the last few weeks put together. I’ve learned to eat licorice after a meal, and not lie down on the couch. I now know that it is saliva that douses heartburn and so sucking on a hard candy is a good way to alleviate upper chest pains.
We’re going to buy Peter a rower. I have my doubts as to how much he’ll use it, but he says he will. He’s got to do something about that stomach. I don’t understand where it comes from, because generally he eats less than average and we’ve become fanatic about not eating garbage.
Miles is growing taller every day. He keeps his own consul. He’s enamored of Mad Magazine and Spy magazine these days. I think he’s happy, but I can’t tell. He’s aware of things going on around him, but as if through a glass panel, or under water. I wonder if I had only one child so that he wouldn’t have to be responsible for anyone but himself.
I don’t think I was really very happy in my role of big sister. I don’t think by nature I like being held responsible for other people; at least, not if I don’t have some corresponding power to be effective.
Ah, tired at last. The thoughts drying up, like Phoenix streets after a summer rain.
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