Thursday, April 19, 2007

Behind the curtain

I wrote that last one at the store during book group time (people like that we have a book group and, now that we're discounting it, they buy the book of the month, but they don't show up to talk about it.) A. and I had one of our invisible fights immediately before I left for book group time--"invisible" because to someone outside the relationship they don't look like much but from inside they are upheavals.

The moment I stood up from the computer after the last post, I started crying. I cried as I shut down the store, I cried as I locked up, I turned around and put on a bright, sunny, walking-home-at-9 pm face to cross the 20 feet to our garden stairs, whereupon I started crying once again.

I am not in okay shape. I am underslept and overwhelmed and out of touch with myself and scared.

Blogging is good--I am interested in something new, writing a lot, and making new friends, something that is difficult in real life, not so much because I am antisocial as because while we were in Madison a lot of our friends--well, no, all of them, a remarkable and unlikely sweep, but it's true, really very nearly all of them--all of our friends moved away. They were graduate students or rabbinical students and they all got jobs far away just when we returned from far away, obliging us to find new friends while having a baby and starting a business and having a couple of really tremendously sucky years at work in A.'s case: this year she is at a different, different school (as Z. would say) and it is much better for her, which may be why I am falling apart more, since part of our dynamic is that only one person gets to fall apart at a time.

Did you follow all of that?

Blogging is also bad, because just now it is substituting for doing practical things in the real world that might help me get better. So I am going to take a few days off and try to get myself organized or at least slept-up. Make some calls. Clear out clutter. Garden. Maybe swim. Be outside while the weather is warm. Talk to A. instead of hiding up here at the keyboard. Oh, and there's a book festival table and a late birthday party I have to manage to pull off, too.

I'll be back next week--for the Wednesday Whine if not earlier--and I'll catch up with all of you then.

8 comments:

Lo said...

Oh, dear. Wishing you strength.
There was a period of time when all of my friends, and my sister, moved away from here in the space of a few short months. It sucked hard. I can't say I've made so many new friends -- it gets harder as you get older, at least for me, it's not like you're in a new class each year! -- but I soldier on. Hope you find some ways to cultivate happiness for yourself.

susan said...

Wishing you some peace and insight. All those changes are hard, and disrupting. I hope you find ways to take some time to gentle yourself.

The Goldfish said...

Hope you have a peaceful weekend and that you are soon feeling much stronger.

Scrivener said...

Checking out for a few days to focus on other things sounds like a really good idea. Sorry everything's so difficult right now.

Liz Miller said...

Hugs, and sleep, and love, and self-care to you.

Jenny Davidson said...

Yes, take care of yourself!

(And I must say that though it is a time-suck & I quite see your point about not opting in to a late book in a series that will then addictively make you have to read all the others in retrospect, I personally find the novels of Lee Child balm to the soul, it might be worth consoling yourself with a couple of em!)

niobe said...

Looking foward to seeing you again. And I hope your time in the real world has given you the chance to sleep and connect and get back in touch with yourself and your family.

S. said...

Hi everyone. Thanks for the good thoughts; it helps. It was good to be unplugged for awhile--I'm reentering blogland a little cautiously. Man, there were a lot of posts waiting for me in my reader!

It's late now, I need to go to sleep. I'll post something proper tomorrow.