no excuses

Today I decided not to make any excuses for myself.  This is an illuminating exercise- try it sometime.  I made it through the entire morning w/o one lousy excuse.  It wasn't until later in the afternoon that I found myself excusing my silence to my coworkers.  I informed them that it was due to a profound lack of sleep coming off the night before.  Once the first excuse rolled off my tongue (like butter, folks) there was a snowball effect ... one right after the other!  Bottom line - I left work early.  I'm home, tucked in, and silent again.  The blog beckons...


Something is happening here.  In the place where I have felt safest, an uneasiness has slipped in.  It occurs to me that I am no longer comfortable being alone for long stretches of time.  It isn't that I don't like my own company, I do.  I am a person who is rarely suspended or even remotely pit-stopped in 'nothing to do'.  I don't understand the expression 'idle'.  What does that mean?  Idle=death.  We'll have plenty of time for Idle in the Great Hereafter.  I am busy.  But I am also uncomfortably stalled with this new mystery.  This confusing place.  Perhaps my spiritual connection has been shattered.  I do feel like things are coming apart.  This deep longing that I have for safety and kindness and the absence of suffering is not exactly panning out in the ways that I'd hoped for.   Maybe I need some valium.  Maybe I need to pray.  Maybe I need a brilliant and funny companion.  Mostly, I need, I think, to stop waging war on this Enemy who seems to have taken up space in my head.  The Enemy informs me that I am weak and defenseless.  The Enemy makes things go bump in the night and then sits on the stoop, smoking a cigarette and laughing at my fear.  It tells me that it's ok to be Christian or Buddhist or Feminist, but never ever Afraid..   It tells me that I am going to end up alone, working the graveyard shift at the 711, lipstick on crooked, bad hair dye job.  Alone.  Maybe it's time to send the Enemy to St Bart's.  Or dump it off a pier into the Hudson River.


There was a time when possibilities existed in a perpetual way.  I remember being beautiful and smart and secure.  I remember when significance was somehow conjoined to the Chanel counter at Bloomingdales, the shoe section at Bergdorfs.  I drove a brand new Saab, I had an Important Job, most of my clothing came from Louis of Boston,(women's section) and Robert Todd,but I had a lovely Chinese taylor who made my three piece suits.  I was on the top of my game.  I was miserable.  I had a Job.  I wanted a Family. I longed for love.  I had no idea what that meant - what that looked like.


Maybe I am a malcontent, through and through.  What I know tonight is this; it is not ok to be sitting alone, at this time in life, while my 'companion' goes off to indulge himself on a road trip.  I am deeply unhappy with his choices - his ability to leave me behind to witness my father's imminent death alone, a passing which colors the landscape of my existence in all ways, preventing any possibility of joy, of wonder.  Is it wrong to need more - to expect the reciprocity of affection and devotion that one has showered over the other during THEIR time of need?  Am I just patently stupid to think or ASSUME that this is possible or just?


I have never bought into that "Women are from Venus ... blah blahBLAH.  Men KNOW.  And they know deeply, in their core, in their bones, what is right.  What is wrong.  Scott, you have abandoned me.  You have neglected me, my feelings.  You have, in your perennial self-serving way, taken care of yourself - followed your passion, your needs, scattering my fears, my hopes, to all corners of Nowhere.   I hope that it is  worth it.  Truly, I do.  If I am here when you return - you'll be the luckiest man alive.  Don't count on it.