Le Petit Mort

Every day is a gift, each hour a curse. I am spiraling, have been spiraling for much of the last year without advertisement or much complaint. I have almost turned myself off completely--as if I had some sort of standby mode setting. The system kicked over after my heart attack. For a few months I was ok. Well, I was never ok. For a few months I felt I had figured out how to get on despite the broken engine. I quit my job in October and returned to the city a temp. I felt more centered in this work and fooled myself it was all working out for the best. Then, I stopped going to rehab because of chest pain. I saw a doctor,  but lost all motivation when he told me that open-heart surgery is a genuine possibility.

I figured I probably needed a permanent job b4 I determined that open heart surgery was the best idea. (Truth be told, I also am just stuck--a serious depression has  been wrestling with my psyche since Jenny died, and I may be pinned at this point.) So, knowing that I would be getting the job of the person whose place I was filling at the City who was on leave ( but never intended to come back). My worry was always that the director was so incompetent he would not fill this role before the rumored impending hiring freeze took place. Yesterday, on what would have been Jenny's 53rd birthday, that fear was borne out. So, I won't be returning to the City on a permanent basis anytime soon. I have other irons in the fire, but this is just  not what I needed.

So, as I was saying earlier, I have unspooled, degaussed, wound down, and really just stopped dead. I rarely return calls or messages from friends or family--not even yesterday when people reached out to remember Jenny's birthday. I never initiate. I haven't spoken to my sister Jane since before the new year. I just don't have it in me to carry on conversations. I barely have it in me to do anything. 

I have concerns, given that Abby leaves for school tonight. The only bright spot in this house with too many rooms was her teenage wit which burns with the same fire and intensity as mine did at her age. Tonight, that light will be heading 3000 miles away. 

I made no Facebook remembrance for the birthday of the woman who I once loved. I do not need to remember her to others, to put out a false self for others to rely on to perpetuate the hagiography. Moreover, now nearly two years on, my anger has not abated, despite all the therapy and time I have consumed. I am angry because Abby has still never mentioned her at all--did not even acknowledge it was her mom's birthday yesterday, despite my bringing up the subject. I am angry at how she hurt Leiney, who had been led to believe she was her mother's "golden child," only to learn she was worth less than iron pyrite to her mother. I am angry because she shat on our marriage, and shat on me until she was no longer coherent. To say that today I feel base hatred toward her would be to state the truth in a manner that is truthful, but understated. 

I learned that Lori Eicheberger, her teacher friend that took her and el pinche to Alabama to see Civil rights sites--including EJI--and who was a midwife and facilitator of the affair, finally died. I hope she suffered from her ovarian cancer as much or more than my kids have suffered because of the affair.