Day 2

I am a lover of stories. Maybe this is why I studied history and literature and sociology so feverishly in my university days.  I just could not get enough of the characters. I could almost feel what they were feeling, see what they saw. Sometimes, and this still happens today, I imagine that I am in those worlds and it is spectacular.  There are some characters in books I’ve read lately though that I do not admire at all.  These are Isabella Swan and Anastasia Steele from the Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey books.  Why don’t I like them? Well, I have always said that they seemed mindless to me. Their only reason for existence was the men they loved. The moment they saw and fell they were forever lost to reason.  How simpering is that?  How weak, how dependent. I would have very choice things to say about these two women to anyone who would ask me. How ironic life is.

I got up this morning, as I do every weekday morning, to bring my son to school.  I chatted with him about his lessons and classes. The drive was good, no traffic to speak off as it was slightly earlier than normal. And because it was 4 hours before the start of my work day, I went home. But I’ve been going home every day this week, after dropping my son off, instead of going straight to the office.  I notice this as I pull up and park in front of my apartment building.  Why, I think to myself, when I had such logical and practical reasons for going to work straight from dropping my son off.

I go up to my unit, greet my daughter who was up eating breakfast, tickle her and smother her with hugs and kisses, sit with her a bit, then retire to my room. And I lie down, and I close my eyes, and I feel a moment where there is no nothingness.  So I nap.  My mom enters my unit, I can hear her from my room, so I decide to join her.  I don’t really want to eat anything so I sip on my coffee and eat the tiny sausages my maid prepares for us both.  Then when we finish breakfast, I play with my daughter, read her a short story, and when she goes to her room to play, I lie down. Again.  I do this for 1.5 hours, flitting in and out of sleep.  Then I force myself to get up because I really don’t want to. I want to stay curled up like that. I want to disappear.  I tell myself, get up, get dressed, go to work, do something, move. Don’t be like those simpering women who cannot eat or sleep or live.  So I do. I get up, get dressed, give instructions for the rest of the meals for the day, go through the motions, kiss and hug my daughter and tell her I will see her later. I drive to work and sit down. I tell myself I will not be pathetic.  So I fix myself, put lip gloss, make sure I look presentable. Then, I try to start working.

Then he texts and asks me to call. We talk about the kids and some arrangements for tomorrow, their weekly visit.  And then at the end of the call I am back to square one. I am fighting back the tears. I have lost the process flow I was working on. My hands are cold and my stomach empty.  I am Isabella and Anastasia and pathetic Vicki all in one.  I know it in my mind but I cannot seem to fight it.  The same moment I get that thought, that I am pathetic, that he was fine on the phone, that he didn’t want me, all I want to do is curl up into a ball again and disappear.  So I write instead to try to fight off the urge to flee, to go home.

Lord, when will this end?  How will it end?  How do I make the pathetic-ness stop?  How do I deal with being set aside?  How do I deal with these feelings? What should I do?  I can’t think well, I can’t think straight. Please help me.