Late this evening or early this morning, I felt utterly deprived of rest. I had listed my many ways of staying happy despite the grind of a life in constant pain. With most of my teeth broken, I had learned new degrees of pain that should have left the old ones in the dust. Unfortunately, Fall has arrived and, like Spring, it is an "in between season" that deprives me of energy and aggravates my arthritis and fibromyalgia. I find myself in need of money for living expenses, medicine, money for bills and in need of a bottle of whiskey to make the pain go away.
In terms of helpless feelings, it made me think of returning to school on Monday morning after a dissastisfying weekend. By chance, the Boomtown Rats' song, "I Don't Like Mondays" played on the New Wave Music Channel and I remembered things in amazing clarity. While I never learned to like Monday mornings very much, Mondays after I boarded the school bus or got behind the wheel of a car became a different story. There came a point when I'd been fed up with helplessness and Mondays became the days on which I came back into precious conspiracies of friendship.
Things were terrible at home and things were just about as bad with my peers in school when I met an angel as in a metaphorical messenger of God. After rough weekeends when I doubted any given reason for living on, I looked forward to seeing her because I would feel better. Strangely, I was never attracted to her but only to the feeling of relief gained from her wise counsel, her ability to grant healing and just one of room light smiles. Much later, I learned of others with this quality known as charisma. I never did stop thinking of her as an angel and as a good person destined for great things.
Not surprisingly, my imagination offered exotic career paths for her and yet I thought of her only rarely during that wonderful and exciting period of my life that led me to meet Melissa. That changed when I got sick with Chiari. The present is painful and draining and it's difficult to see where I do any good. I believe that I was reacting pretty naturally when I wished to escape into my past and I devoted the occasional hour to doing so. If only I found a way to contact her, I would explain how she was so important to my life. When I had expressed that, I would see if there was a tiny bit of room to share in our lives.
When I managed to make contact against considerable odds, she didn't know how to react. Of course, I should have predicted it all. Since she was never the type to think too highly of herself, my praise struck her as weird. Of course, I used the metaphor of older sister instead of angel because I didn't want to frighten her with excessively high praise. I find nothing excessive about it since so many do the Lord's work even if they are not believers but I withheld it anyway to attempt a comfort level.
I didn't realize that her essential discomfort was so like mine. I got sick from something you almost never get better from when I was 25 and I remain sick. One of my coping mechanisms is to avoid dwelling on the implications of being 40-something. No! I'm still 25, there is a cure for Chiari and, while I'm in denial land, I'm still on the verge of achieving great things.This version of me never learned that "I Don't Like Mondays" was a song expressing the horror and confusion of school shootings all the way back in the early 80s. This imaginary younger me is escapism but it's better than hoping I'll get some whiskey before the next time my pain gets out of control.
I blame the brain damage but she came right out and told me that she doesn't like to think about having a kid. In her case, I can imagine why since she has achieved so much that I never anticipated. Obviously, I expected her to find her someone but she has remained an activist who leads by example instead of just advising others. She made choices along the way and choice always leads to pondering the other option no matter how unseriously. I don't know what that's like because I met Melissa, started to believe myself, got married and then had all choice taken from me by Chiari. That was my last decision and it was a good one.
Anyway, my curiosity made me ignore one stark fact. There was no room in her very full life for me and this was okay. I promised myself long ago that I would walk away when I realized the truth. I've realized it so now I shall. Farewell, old friend. Obviously, I would offer any aid you required that was within my power but I don't have much these days. Needless to say, I won't be looking for some excuse to "help." I gave up that vice decades ago. Farewell.
Of course, I do still like Mondays and the possibilities that they imply. That was a wonderful gift from an angel decades ago.
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