5/28/2008

The Pitiful Personage

I took the Oldest to piano lesson and fell asleep in the car. I keep thinking that youth has escaped me. 

My sister in law left nearly a whole cheesecake in my fridge from Memorial Day and it says on the box that each slice is five HUNDRED calories. I am still steadily eating a piece a day and feeling slightly guilty although I have been eating less since I can't eat with these blasted braces on. But the fat intake is a tad alarming. Let's not talk about it. 

I get excited every time my favorite time of day hits: around four o'clock. I think that this is the time when I start to make dinner, pour myself a glass of wine and enjoy the sun while I grill. But I realized what was missing, why it never meets my expectations. I feel the excitement but then it slowly streams into a dull ache that ends in a headache from the wine--- I miss all my friends from Idaho that I used to chat with before and during the making of meals. That is the sort of emptiness I feel when I see a wine bottle and no one to share it with. Or a comfortable patio set with no one to sit in it with me. The Professor does what he can----he will help me out and drink a beer (or even a glass of wine) to give me the same sensation as in years gone by, but again, it is not the same. He is a part of me, and WE are missing THEM. 

I know I always sound depressing, but I am of the miserable lot that enjoys a little bit of dreariness at various times of the day just for effect. The Professor calls me "dramatic". 

This past weekend the man took the crew to the pool while I was at work and they enjoyed a little sun while there. Well, the Prof. got a good deal of sun. He was so burned that he could not walk down the stairs, or move too quickly. He was so burned he had to have his food brought up to him for two days. To lessen his misery and loneliness he had to sit on the bed with his laptop to communicate with people. He would yell down the stairs if he heard any ruckus from the children and say something like, "Be nice to your mom!" And I am finding that I am heavily influenced by Lemony Snickett at the moment. We are currently listening to the Hostile Hospital. Oh, those poor orphans. 

Nevermind.

How are you all doing? Fill up my comments area. I am missing all my friends. Take pity.

And don't forget to listen to my sad, bleak and dreary songs here


17 comments:

Whistle Britches said...

I understand completely about the missing of your friends.
I'm only ten miles away from our former home but it might as well be cross country.

This was a good post.
I was visited by one of my high school friends who is now a music teacher/pianist at Langston University in Oklahoma.
He played some wonderful hymns, Black Gospel style on our piano.
He's got perfect pitch.
Wonderful musician and I'm glad he's my friend again.
So, in closing.
I had a great day.

R said...

Uncle Joe, that DOES sound like a great day! I am glad you enjoyed it. :)

Ten miles in your town must be like an hour here.

Lyssa said...

I understand how it is to miss people back in Idaho. You really find out who your good friends were, because you find that those people are the ones you think about the most, call up at random hours, and email to see how they're doing. I haven't been back to Boise for two years. Part of me is glad that I'm able to start a new life in St. Louis, but another part of me wonders what would feel more like home now, the mountains and streets of Boise, or the green abundance and music scene of St. L. Feels sometimes that part of me gets left in every town that I live in, and considering that I've moved twelve times (about to be thirteen in a week), it can be overwhelming to think of it that way. Or, I could look at it from the perspective not of losing part of myself with each new move, but gaining a new moiety of my character. I vary in both ways of thought, depending on what sort of mood I'm in at the time.

I just found that word, moiety, and I've been dying to use it : )

Gen said...

That's it. Tell The Professor I have decided your family shall head West, where I will come sit on your deck drinking wine and chat with you while I watch you make dinner. That sounds like heaven to me.

Mrs. Sinta said...

You guys are not westerners...you would not be happy here, so put that thought out of your mind. We are honored that you miss us. It sounds like you need to have some weekend dinner parties this summer and invite people from your church. The best cure for homesickness is making new friends.

Anonymous said...

Mrs. Sinta is right as rain, but as you said, I believe you enjoy a touch of melancholy - you can hear it in your songs, it's in your artist soul. So don't worry about it; embrace it, move on, and have another piece of cheesecake. And remember that you do have friends.

Anonymous said...

hey there, i had braces for 16 months when i was at high school. at the time it seemed such a bitch, but now in retrospect i'm so glad i did it, and in the scheme of things it was no time at all.

(and by far i was more hung up about it than any of my friends or family were)

sing a happy song

Anonymous said...

There is wisdom in the last three comments.

In this life, if you want friends, you need to be a friend. So you left friends in another state. Make some new ones in this state. Friends aren't dropped from the sky, but are gifts of trust that are earned and nurtured. Get out and make some friends instead of pining for what you don't have.....to linger in the negative will repel positive people in your life. You get what you attract. "out of the heart, the mouth (or blog) speaketh." When the bucket of your life is jostelled, what spills over? Hope or complaint?

Enjoy the cheesecake and be thankful you have braces. The people who lost their homes, families, schools, and were dug out of rubble in the China earthquake are truly the only ones who have the right to complain at this point. They would give anything for a slice of cheesecake or a doctor to help them.

All other complaining from our spoiled American lives seems selfish, cloistered and pathetic.
Oh what energy is being wasted huddling around embers of self-pity when we could be looking upward to the sunrise of hope.

I echo the last comment, "sing a happy song". The world could use a smile right now...even one with braces.

Pastor X said...

Well this will be a dead giveaway. We miss you too! For the record, my wine intake since everyone has left Idaho has dropped to less than a bottle a month - imagine that! And pizza has certainly never been the same!

Laura said...

I am a bit freaked out by the fact that I (believe that I) don't know any of the people that have commented on your blog so far.

Anyway - my dear Rach - I have no words of wisdom or tidbits of advice. Except for that please don't change and it is perfectly fine for you to wallow in your state of missing people. My pigs wallow in their pit of mud and you know what? They feel better afterward. They dry off and get cleaned off...and then sit in their wallow, again, later, if they need to.

So wallow away.

And I miss you terribly, too. But I am glad that we are still connected even though separated by miles.

Suzy-Q said...

dang blogger. i had a nice long chatty comment and i guess blogger ate it.

Doozie said...

When I'm feeling down and lonely, I don't want anyone telling me to do this and do that and stop it already. I'm "feeling" things, and I'm processing them, and if I were to ignore them, it would wreak havoc. I have hardly any friends, and I have and will continue to be a friendly, giving person. I'm a great friend, I listen, I spend time, I go out of my way to visit, and I can tell you from experience, that has not necessarily gotten me friends. People are quick to say "in order to have a friend you must be a friend" but I look around me at all the selfish, self absorbed people who are constantly getting invites, and getting attention from tons of friends, so sorry to say, that is not in my opinion, a very accurate statement. People are too wrapped up in their own lives, and when you get older, people already have friends, and they don't have time, or desire to make time for yet another friend. I find christians to be the worst lot of people who do not reach out. Not one single person that I attached myself to in our old town, from our church has ever wondered where we went, or attempted to contact me. I dropped off the face of the earth and it was like I never existed in the first place. I attended a home group every week, I shared, I prayed with and for others, and one day I stopped going. I never heard a peep out of them. I guess I'm just not pathetic appearing? I am rambling on your blog, but something set me off.

mabcat said...

i know what you mean. all your other friends said the nice things i would say, and, in addition, i will say that i miss all the good times we haven't had yet....
like, there should be an online bookclub.

R said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bee said...

I'm with Doozer (even though she is a die hard friend in another state, she speaks VOLUMES)

To live constantly in what you've expressed is not good but lingering to post and express how you are feeling is A GOOD THING. No one should tell you how you feel about missing someone. Or feeling guilty over...get this...a 'guilty pleasure'. Or even your music...

So, is silver lining on Pollyanna crack or are they suffering the effects of too many Care Bear movies?

R said...

Lyssa---I am glad you understand.

Groovy Mom--I would love to have you here!!! :) I love my state too much to leave it!

Sinta---I have new friends. I just miss my old ones who can not EVER be replaced.

Morton----yes, I shall have another.

Ponder---yes, thank you for the encouragement. I am actually thankful for the braces in light of the alternative, which would have been severely bad. Not fun.

Silverlining, Angelwings, person from Fredericksburg or someone who knows me only slightly and checks my blog's comments to see if I react to your prodding---- If I say that you are better than me would that help matters for you? I really don't mind being corrected but my blog entry just there that you here commented on was not asking for any kind of response that you made. I was asking you how you were doing, not asking for advice or what have you. And if you are from my town are you my friend or are you turned off by my melancholy? Well here's my advice: get a job (or if you do have one, work it instead of coming on here all the time), and if you know me, make yourself known and be a friend to me instead of spouting off all this new age "negativity" stuff. And if you are messing with me, I will say this in the kindest way I can: you just suck.

And well, of course, I could very well be wrong, like usual, and subject myself to braces, a false lack of friends, continual mourning over being born in America and having medical care, and the list goes on.

And if I see you tomorrow remember to give me a thumbs up, tell me to smile and say "life's not so bad! Pish!" and I will, in turn give you a jolly hug because you definitely turned my dark, bleak and dreary rainclouds into boisterous, feel-good, positive thinking straight from Oprah.

And that is all I have to say about you I guess.

Laura---Yeah, it's crazy.

Pastor X---I miss you too!!!!!

Aunt Jo---No bother. I missed reading what you would have written though. Bummer.

Doozie---Not cool about the small group. That is not a good example of Christianity. Heck, I am not either. I wish I could say that it has never happened to me, but it has.

Mabcat---Yes siree.

Gen said...

I liked your first response. Sounded like something I would have said. ;-)