On The Edge of 17

Entry 1.    4:18 a.m.

It is Abby's birthday. She entered this world, well, it will be seventeen years ago come 11:30 p.m. What a gift my girls are. Abby has been so loving and happy since we got to California. She loves it at least as much as I do. 26000 steps, and a dozen rides later, and I am convinced the girl is trying to kill me, however.

Abby was in charge of the Disney app. I now concede I am, in the use of particular apps, the equivalent of my mother trying to program the VCR to record television shows.  This acceptance has cost me dearly.

When wè bought our tickets, I couldn't get us into California Adventure, which


Abby wanted to see more than anything. It took two minutes for me, no wait, for a Disney employee to fix it for us. 

Leiney has made this trip easier and more pleasant just by her presence and sweetness. She can see my tears, even though I am trying my best to hide them, and comforts me.

We are dinner around 8 at Mimi's, which is across from the park. Jenny and I ate here with the kids, my cousin and her family as well the first time we came to Disney. It took me three Maker's, neat, to make.peace with being there. It's the first time I have had a libation of any kind since Jenny died. It hit the spot. We walked back to the hotel afterward, and I slept until  4:00 a.m.

I had dreams about hanging out with Ria and David last night. In the dream I ran into them at Riverside Community Hospital, in the new tower. I was telling them about my life over the last several months. The three of them peppered me with questions. Then, we were at Disney, me still telling the tale.  They were intrigued.

Entry 2.   9:27 a.m.

Standing in the SBUX line for 30 minutes never felt more lonely.

Entry 3   12:47 p.m.

80's music playing here at The Black Tap, Abby's request for her lunch meal. We are having a lovely time, one ride to go to finish California Adventure. The kids are thrilled about how we tackled the parks, but more excited it's only 68 degrees. I could use some more heat, but this is rather nice.

I was feeling sad watching happy families walking by, and then remembered we are a happy family, which is remarkable. Truth is, one can be happy and sad at once.  I am sure I have never experienced this mix with such intensity, but it exists--like when your kid gets a driver's license or graduates high school. It isn't bittersweet, exactly, but it is not less than that.

Entry 4    3:55 p.m.

With all that walking, my dogs started barking, and barked louder by 2:30 when we got in the Lightning Lane at Goofy's Flight School. They were howling so much by the time we finished, I knew I needed to get back to the hotel and get my shoes off my feet. Having hit all the rides in the park that the kids view worth riding, they both were more than happy to come back to the hotel. It's a cool 71 degrees. I need a nap.

Entry 5    7:37 p.m.

Leiney returns home in the morning, as we head to Los Angeles to visit Occidental College. Fun fact, Jack Kemp and Barrack Obama attended Occidental. That I loathe both of them is not coloring my opinion. . . very much. Abby wants to go to Santa Monica after that. I don't. Who will prevail is anyone's guess.

Tomorrow, we will be staying at The Mission Inn, my favorite hotel. I will be having cocktails at 7 with a friend I worked with, Cara. She hasn't been in touch, and when I reached out to her, she was devastated to learn Jenny died. Speechless. I felt bad I told her. She doesn't do social media, really, and obviously doesn't check my journal. It will be good to see her, she is one of my favorite people. 

This world is so different. Traveling through it alone was hard before Jenny passed, but now it is indescribable. First came the first, the first time doing this or that without her here. Now, I am thinking about never finding someone who can know me as well, will never grow old with the person I married, never be a grandparent with her. 

Then, my mind crawls back to the terrible things she did and said. Her stories told to place me in a false light to justify her behavior, believed by so many despite being so pat and so patently false. Borne not out of love, but a deep hatred of me, of my failure to understand or accept her theory of entitlement, or my location in her own social constellation. I became a wandering moon, her pull no longer enough to keep me spinning in circles around her desires. That meant for her, I suppose, that I needed to be erased, wiped out, obliterated. And so it was with so many, that she took truths and turned them inside out, made it look as if I were the problem driving her away. No one really pressed her on why she didn't leave me, or asked any questions.

So, I go out of my mind daily trying to do that thing I tried and failed to do for  the last 19 months, reconcile the person I knew with the actually then-existing Jenny. I have to be satisfied with not knowing. I am satisfied not knowing the why's and wherefores of existence, or why my 16 year old leaves her socks on each stair on the staircase to her bedroom, only collecting them when she does laundry. I can't let go of hoping I can understand the unfathomable mechanics of Jenny's mind. It hurts.

It is fascinating to think that one person could so carefully curate so many different versions of me.  For some few I am amazing according to Jenny. For others I am just not discussed in an evaluative way, she doesn't offer any commentary on me, other than to describe the goings-on around her cancer. For yet others, I am the abject bumbler who she claimed I wouldn't have survived the last 30 years without but for her. Still other people were led to believe I am an ogre, who was emotionally withholding, didn't lift a finger, and who was angry all the time, and always unreasonably so. The final group was an admixture of the latter two, a grumpy, ornery, unfeeling layabout, good for a paycheck, but not much else. Keeping these story lines straight was an onerous task for most, but she did it with ease, with little effort. 

How do I make sense of all of this? How do I learn to forgive her and let it go? I don't know. I  don't. I miss her, mourn her loss.  But also, I wonder what kind of person I am that didn't understand or see the manipulation in which she constantly engaged?

I am stuck. Mad at myself for a million reasons mad at her for several, and unable to work through it.


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