Sanctum Sanctorium

This past Friday marked the first official week survived at my new locale on the job.  We moved from one floor to the other and packed our boxes up relatively quickly with the help of a couple of movers who made everything look easy.  Oddly enough, the move was taking place just as I was  simultaneously revaluating my hectic personal life and some snags I’d hit with Carlos.  When these troubles come, it’s sort of adulthood hitting you in the face and telling you to make these dramatic, life-changing decisions when you’re sill fuzzy on the details and can’t turn to anyone for advice.  Yeah.  Like that.

Two weeks ago, we literally had to pack all of our stuff in one neverending day of sorting, arranging, arguing, vying for limited space (oh yeah, did I mention that the space we moved to is considerably smaller?) and feeling just awful.  I felt like the world was coming to an end but still tried to keep my cool as my boss gave me a list of incessant instruction amid the chaos.  I think I did well because I did get my point across while working through the displeasure of the new, strange working environment.  Let’s just say, I wasn’t a fan. 

Where Are We: The Tropics?

The first thing I noticed in our new area, was a gynormous tropical palm tree smack dab in the middle of our workspace.  It was obviously an afterthought since the circumference of the vase alone made it difficult to get in and out of my cubicle.  What made it even more ridiculous, was that it hid us from view.  All that anyone could see was the expansive tree.  So I made the executive decision, since no one wanted to acknowledge the obvious oversized palm, to push it into a corner near my other co-worker.  The new positioning made it seem though as if my co-worker were working in a jungle…all he needed was a Panama hat and khaki-shorts. 

The Office Prank:

The practical joke came along pretty naturally.  Partly because we were bored, and partly because we needed a laugh.  This monstrous palm tree had now become a new feature of our daily comic routine.  We talked about adorning the tree with velcro plush monkies and someone hung a bushel of bananas around one of the trunks.  So as the tree-trimmer arrived to cut off some of the branches to make it fit better in the corner, a fellow co-worker decided to take these and redecorate the entire cube.  We did it while he was out-to-lunch and someone else had jungle sounds uploaded into the adjacent computers to be played at the opportune time.  It went over really well and all gave us something to laugh about.

Click Your Heels Together Dorothy and say, “There’s No Place Like Home”

Three days prior to my temporary insanity, my sister had moved into my mom’s house.  This paved the way for me to be guilt-tripped into moving there as well because of my argument with Carl.  My head was spinning as my mom and sis took the lead, setting up appointments for us to view apartments even before I had the chance to breathe.  Note to Self: Don’t Do Anything Rash When You’re Angry. The first day was like I was on vacation, really.  I had packed a bag full of nothing I could use or needed, took Lady out of the house and split without really thinking about anything.  I just knew that I wanted out at the moment and that nothing was going to change my mind.  Hence, my temporary insanity.  It really was insane what I was doing.  I leapt because I really felt that I needed just to breathe and also because I was angry at Carl and because so many things were going on that I didn’t have a chance to think things through. 

I am a firm believer that rash decisions make for rash actions.  Those are often stupid actions because you didn’t get to rationalize properly.  Also, you’re only doomed to make the same mistakes elsewhere if you never got to the bottom of the reason behind why you chose to leave in the first place.  You’ll just jump into the next worst thing for you and create new chaos without successfully dealing with the old chaos.  So that was the wrong thing for me.  I knew it.  I further knew it because my mom’s couch was not where I wanted to be sleeping.  I wanted to be sleeping in my bed, Goldilocks.  I would manage to ignore the 3 bears so long as they let me get a good night’s sleep.  Too much change at once was making me grumpy.  I worked really hard digging my groove.  Why was I gonna fly and start digging a new groove when the old song hadn’t finished playing?  This needle was going to try to skip the nasty scratch and try to play it through. 

Then, It Got Worse:

I got sick.  Bad head cold from lying in my mom’s apartment, which hit subzero temps at night with the windows wide open and only a thin fleece sheath to cover me.  I was miserable.  This doesn’t have anything to do with my mom, by the way.  I was just in that uncomfortable place where I just wanted to sleep in a nice, warm bed and why can’t it not be my nice, warm bed when I worked so damned hard to get my body’s contours into the mattress anyway and why shouldn’t I feel wonderful there, dammit?! *ahem* I kept picturing my closet, all of the clothes sitting there lonesome and waiting for mama.  It was pitiful.  Then, I was sick and needed Carl to fix me one of his cup-o-soups or a coffee or a hot chocolate or whatever it was that would make me feel better.  Only Carl knows what I need when I’m sick and it wouldn’t hurt to force him to have to care for me when I was so angry at him in the first place. 

I wasn’t sold right away.  I don’t think that any of my phone conversations snuck in between my showers and meals at mom’s place really convinced me.  I knew that we did have to talk things out, but it wasn’t like there was an enormous amount of apologizing going on.  We were both pretty ticked off, so we just kept on barking at one another as he went on to say that he missed me blahblah, and that I wanted to hear some things from him yaddayadda.  Neither one of us were stepping over the lines we’d drawn in the sand.  We’re both pretty subborn when it comes to staying angry.  I wanted him to know the severity of my convictions and that why I lasted the whole four days.  OK.  Four days; big deal right?  But it was for us since we spend so much time together.  It’s been only him and me for YEARS now, and I just wanted to see if he understood just how hurt I was.  In the past, these were called lover’s spats or quarrels.  This was like that but somehow always seems more amplified when you are actually experiencing it firsthand.  It’s nothing like the advice you give your friends and all that.  You know that it’s no fun to take your own advice anyway. 

The Bottom Line is that I needed to come home and there really is no place on earth where I feel more wanted, loved and comfortable.  Lord, Bless This Mess.  Oh, and No Stress: the key to SUCCESS.

Riding In Cars

I wish sometimes that life didn’t hurt this much.  I wish every decision could be flawless and swift, filled with confidence and courageousness.  Tears, tears and nowhere to turn.  Things are not simple.  Just when I think I have everything figured out, The Higher Power throws me another curve ball and sticks it to me in the worst way.  Why all the trials?  Why all the tribulations?  Why all the issues coming back like a flood?

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Oh, Thoreau, how right you were.  If you only knew.  Yet all I keep seeing is my limited choices, my back against the wall and the impending dilemma.  How can I get the world to stop just long enough to get my bearings?  How can I get RWAV to understand that things are not so simple, that at its core is confusion and worry and dread?  What seems to be my life has now become what’s left of it as I struggle to analyze all that has gone wrong; all that I’ve done, and all that he has.  Yes, it’s a man-related issue.  Yes, it involves my security.  Yes, it is cliche.  The terrifying, lurking thing that has managed to weasel into a life that I had managed to hold together with some chicken-wire and glue no longer suits…have to find another way of weaving these pieces together.  I bet you’re familiar, but skeptical.  I bet you think you have it all figured out even as you read this.  You probably think that your world is as steady and constant as the sun.  But even those stars will one day burn out…and what then?!

As the car rode up the block with its hum, I realized what wasn’t in my control.  I had a look just outside the passenger window just to see a strip of buildings huddling together, people passing while walking their dogs and chatting and laughing.  They looked like I once looked: happy.  There was nothing to see.  Not for me.  They passed me as figures on a moving motion picture reel.  Not real.  I could sing to the lyrics on the radio.  I could wave my finger at will.  I just couldn’t do anything else because I’d lost something precious.  I’d just lost it like the rhythm of the music playing.  What seemed contagious, flattering, simple now grew into a monster I couldn’t control.  That monster was a beast of a lie.  A beast.

The wind picked up and whirled through my hair like a stranger.  It said, This too shall pass.  Rain came in shifts.  Rain that pelted the windshield and dropped down like tears.  I had many questions; my mind running like the hands on a clock.  I figured.  I wondered. I miss me.  I miss him now and after and now and tomorrow…

Counted the raindrops.  They were myriad; they were legion.  It was against me, it was against the car that I sat in.  It pelted me like bullets, hurt like a burn.  Riding in hot cars is like being on a spit.  There’s no returning to the life that you knew because it doesn’t fit you.

Like an awkward visitor, you go back to the womb and try to make due with a lava lamp and end table.  You try to pretend that you’re satisfied while RWAV is yelling and exhausting and hurtful and dependent on you.  The weight of her words fall heavy round your neck like a noose.  It is a noose.  You’ve called it by name now.  But how do you keep your self without hurting her, this delicate balance?  You’re laughing now, but it isn’t funny.  You’re crying from laughing and hoping that it’ll all blow over–that she’ll blow over.  You’re crying and she’s brutish with angry words all over you.  She’s needy.  How’d this begin?  Oh, yes.  It was him. (Thanks.)

The car is rolling and your wheels are tired from spinning.  You think of the simple times when it was just talk: boys and cars and love sweet love.  Life was simpler when you didn’t have to worry about those heady topics like LOVE or obligation or illness or trouble or lies, lies, lies.  The time when the biggest worry was what tape to put in the tape deck.  Mamas and Papas paid the rent and you never saw a bill–didn’t even know what one looked like. 

The heart gets stomped on and falls victim to the wheels that travel over it.  The precipice it stands (precariously) on, shifts.  Underneath it may lie an adventure or another crevasse from which no traveller returns.  Here’s hoping that its journey, although bumpy, has surprises in store which the heart could not imagine.

Wish You Were Here.