Yes, I’m Listening

Image by davide ragusa via Unsplash.

Recently, my hair stylist very gently pointed out that Betty was floundering. I hadn’t been posting, hadn’t been cooking, hadn’t been exercising. And she very subtly noted that this sort of thing wasn’t sustainable, not for my body and especially not for my mind.

Huh. Interesting.

My mind, it seems, is a million different places at once. I sit down at the computer to write a post, get distracted by something on Google News which leads to another link and next thing I know I’ve gone deep down the rabbit hole and run out of time to do anything productive.

So yeah, she may have a point about my mind.

I’m at a bit of a loss. We all are. We’re 11 weeks post-fire and The New Normal works for none of us. It’s frustrating and stressful and not helped one bit by people who make jokes about “Are you ever moving back home???” or the ever helpful, “If it were me, this would be over right now. I’d [knock some heads/scream and cry at them/show them who’s boss] and shit would get done,” or even, “What are you doing, milking the system? I’d sure love to spend a few weeks at a hotel.” Right. Because up to this point we’ve just been lounging around, being fed grapes by a cabana boy and not trying to accomplish anything. We don’t feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill. We’re not deeply frustrated by the lack of progress. We’re absolutely not living with a flock of drunken, obnoxious, misogynistic 20-somethings who turn it into a frat house, which is absolutely the way I wanted to spend my summer and autumn.

And the people who say to The Assistant, “Oh, the hotel must be so much fun!” makes him recoil. “I’ve started judging people, Mom,” he said recently. “Anyone who thinks that this is fun is not a good person. Anyone who asks, ‘how did the fire start?’ before asking if everyone is safe is not a good person, deep down. They’re just gossips.” Interesting to see the life lessons that he’s absorbing.

For now, I’m trying to look ahead and focus on the future, however far off on the horizon that may seem to be.

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