Saturday 1 of year 2

Every once in a while I get this weird meta feeling where I'm above (figuratively) myself looking at my life and am struck dumb (one might say even gobsmacked) by the sheer beauty and surreality of it. Today when I was driving back from taking B to work, such a moment occurred. I was at the intersection of W Charleystone and Ramrod, facing west. So, the sun is a good 1.5 to 2 hours up already, and it's shining from behind me onto the mountains to the west of town making them look so clear and HD in the pre-autumn late summer air (air that's heating up but is not so ridiculously hot yet, which means I have the car windows down and the AC off) that I felt a wave of that strong emotion we feel whenever we experience that kind of beauty and peace.  I was driving B to work because on Saturday I'm off but he's not, so it is my absolute pleasure and delight to wake up with him even though others might choose to sleep in, and get ready and take him to work. (I'm not being sarcastic.) We stop for McDonald's breakfast, which I am not in any way ashamed to say I still enjoy. I mean, come on. Sausage McMuffin with egg? That's delicious! By getting up and taking him to work, I get started on a productive morning and we get to spend time together and I will get to go back and get him, which always guarantees he gets out at a good time because his boss will feel too guilty to try to make him stay there and work more when she knows I'm waiting. It's the deal they have. He opens, she gets to have the morning off, then when she gets in, he gets to leave.

Anyway, back to The Moment. So, I'm sitting there, and I'm first in line in the turn lane. Across the intersection is a row of cars facing me, 5 wide. They're all the same kind of car, some smallish SUV type. All lined up in a perfect row. The same car. Not a sedan to be seen. 1 right turn lane, 2 traffic lanes, 2 left turn lanes. It looks so weird. And I start to think, "look. Look at where you are. You're married, you live here, in a city you swore was the only place you'd never want to live, you're going to take your dog to the groomer and go back to the condo in the guard-guarded gated community you live in and how did you get here? What crazy chain of events over an entire lifetime led to this moment?" I guess they're the "Once In A Lifetime" moments, but they happen more frequently than that.

Does everyone have those moments? I'm not a particularly retrospective person, but I have been trying to suss out the strings of the rich tapestry that is my life, figuring out what decisions led to what events. Especially this week when I've joined THEFACEBOOK and have found myself in touch with some people I haven't spoken to in 20 years, others I haven't spoken to in a year but who were a part of my life EVERY DAY for many years and yet others with whom I'm barely acquainted, but who are now my friends. And I'm starting to see that friendship is the real economy in which the only true and lasting currency is exchanged. How's that for profound yet trite? Does everyone but me already know that?

Hm, I think the proper equation is: profound + trite = cliche.

I honestly don't think I'm retrospective, that came out when I was talking to B about how I could never be a talented memoirist. I'm listening to the entire archive of This American Life, and ruing the fact that I'll never write such clever pieces. I don't feel like I have very clear memories or interesting stories about my childhood or youth, but then when I told him a general memory about cutting down Christmas trees, he seemed interested. So I don't know. I always like just telling more recent information and maybe what I've recently been thinking about. Of course how I am now is really affected by some older stuff, and this week when I was trying to figure out WHY I don't keep in touch with people (which has been my practice for 30+ years), I understood something. A child can't really have sophisticated coping mechanisms to deal with complex feelings like guilt and loss and feeling lonely and abandoned. So, at some point I learned how to completely cut off feeling lonely for a person (if this were German there'd be a word for that feeling) because of my parents divorce and my dad leaving. I was close to my dad, we are very similar. I know he loves me and loved me then, but he left and it's a good thing, since he was a drunk bent on self-destruction.  And somewhere in my child psyche, I hid those painful feelings so far inside and so completely, that to this day I can just cut someone off in my mind and not really miss them. I've written about this before, about how sad and sorry it made me when I read through my box of old cards and letters from friends, and they all said some variation of "I know you won't respond to this, but I just want you to know I'm thinking about you." I've had people try and try and try to stay in touch with me, to the point where I get angry because can't they take the hint? And as B said, it must seem very bewildering to the other person, because there's absolutely no rational reason or explanation for my behavior. Yet to me, it seems perfectly normal. That's what you do when you are not able to see each other regularly, when one of you moves away or whatever. That's what you do.

So here I am, on the verge of beginning my 5th decade of life. Is it too late to change that lifelong way of dealing with that complicated feeling of anger and loss when you miss a person and the way you used to be able to connect? Ha, what just occurred to me is that perhaps I wouldn't have that feeling if I would keep in touch with people. Hm! OH MY! What happened to me as a child was completely out of my control! But that isn't the case now! I'm fully capable of still having a relationship with someone that I no longer see regularly! That's what people do, isn't it!?!!?? Sheesh!

I'm tempted to post this on my THEFACEBOOK so that all those people whose emails and calls I appeared to ignore can see why. Nah, I'll post a link to this Vox on there, and whoever is motivated may tool on over and read.