Autumn Leaves Are Falling
It's complicated. I wake up in the morning feeling happy. I take out the dogs, make my coffee, turn on Bloomberg. I make toast, pour my freshly brewed, and then give the dogs a treat. After all of this, I sit and drink coffee, before getting up to take Willow and Buddy out yet again, about 5 minutes later. Somewhere in the midst of this process, as the sun rises into view through our east facing windows and light of day strengthens, my thoughts turn to Jenny, and the void that she left in our lives. I miss her. I know, ultimately, that we were not good for each other, still after 11000 days together, I have many cherished memories and a deep and abiding love for her. It's easier for those who have experienced such a devastating loss to erase the bad facts and engage in hagiography of the than one might think. I am not prone to mythologizing, nor immune, I suppose. But, I also know over time, after my mother died, the scales began to fall off my eyes and I better understood her parenting deficits. She wasn't a devil or an angel, just all too human. The same goes with Jenny. She was giving, beloved by many, kind beyond compare to many people, and on and on and on. For the last 19 months of her life, Jenny was often terrible to me, and at times the same tender person I knew and loved for 31 years. Unlike with my mother, the blindness that kept me from seeing that which was clear to others regarding Jenny's treatment of the kids and me, came clear.
Still, the reverence and respect for the things she accomplished (both of which I share) are real and deserved.
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I am sitting at home. Alone with the dogs. Abby began her theater intensive. Supertramp's Lord Is It Mine? circa 1979 is blaring. I am struggling again. I thought I got through this at 17, this angst. I struggle at times to understand the point. There is no path to follow, no right thing to do, nothing that has to be done, frankly.
I should be moving into happiness. I'm not. I am drifting. I am anchorless. Or, more apropos, I am the anchor. If we lived in water, I am so listless I would be encrusted with barnacles. I am uncertain, sans children, what the point of this existence is, to be honest. I don't say this to be dramatic or maudlin. I am not feeling sorry for myself. But, I am not artful enough to understand or to create a compelling reason (or select one from the myriad belief systems out there) for existence. While we are here, we have an obligation to others. But, there is no obligation to stay. What is the moral obligation to continue to suffer loss after loss? If you are fortunate enough, you live long enough to decline and die. You may get Alzheimer's or dementia before checking out. That's a reason to live, to be sure.
I am not suicidal. I don't hate life. I love my kids. I adore my dogs. But, I am 56 years old for fuck's sake, and have not derived any meaning in this life from anything I have seen or done. I see a world that doesn't make sense, a world filled with intractable injustice, pain and suffering.
Let me back off that a bit. My children give me meaning, they are my everything, my alpha and omega. They are my pride and my joy. They make the world a better place. But I keep looking at old videos of Sarah Vaughan or Chet Baker or Miles Davis. I keep wondering how I settled for mediocrity. Events conspire, to be sure. But, most of my lack of satisfaction has to do with sloth and indolence of my own making. I am dissatisfied with my life, but to paraphrase Tom T. Hall says in "I Hope It Rains At My Funeral," I wouldn't want a chance to do it all over, because I would just find another way to make the same mistakes again.
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| The Lahaina Banyan Tree and Abby, 2019. |
lovely time. Our friends, Dayna and Mark, told us they were going to Maui in 2019, and wondered if we wanted to go with them again. We had traveled there together a few years earlier. I was an enthusiastic yes. Jenny pointed out that Leiney couldn't go because of Running Start--her community college was not out that week. In a surprising twist, she suggested I take Abby and go. I was over the moon. I agreed heartily. Thinking this was her tipsy authorization, I immediately the next day reserved rooms at Napili Point on Maui. Well, now I understand why. The love that was blooming between Jenny and el pinche in January, had come to full flower. My being gone was perfect. Jenny wasn't going to stay home at night with Leiney anyway. And her urging of me to go didn't reverse when she was sober. She was pissed about the money I spent on the place, no surprise (it would have been bizarre had she not been upset). Anyway, when Google photos asks me to look back at memories,it is a crap-shoot with regard to whether I make some new discovery about motivations and things that took place those last several years of our life together.
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