meanwhile back at the ranch

"Running over the same old ground. What have we found?
The same old fears, Wish you were here"
-- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"

I love to look back so often and marvel at how much my life has changed, how much I've changed, following Mom's death. I so much enjoy how much I consider myself to have learned from that. How much I've grown in a positive way.

While I don't speak of it often, I do also continue to be disgusted by so many things that have not changed. So many parts of myself I reflect on and realize... *shaking head*... have slipped back to right where they were.

I wish so much I could feel the passion, even if it meant rage, but the passion for life that I had for a while, after the insanity and confusion had subsided, but before I'd slipped back to being as hum-drum as before. When I felt like I knew something no one else did, like I appreciated so much more clearly that life is short and you've got to make the most of it. A time when I was ready to "gra'hab da bull by de urns". But I'm not like that anymore. All the same old fears have returned really. All the same old ways. Sure, I think differently now. I see the world differently now. But for all my novel thinking, I'm still just as paralyzed by my own fears or laziness as I was before it all happened.

I don't want to be.

In a way, that's what you give up when you let go of the pain. You give up the realization. You can't keep the passion without keeping the hurt.

I did go to Dad's. Hadn't seen him in quite a while either. I really should drop by or call more often. We chatted. Mom didn't come up in conversation until I was leaving. I was beginning to wonder if he even remembered. That might sound odd, but you'd have to know my father. He's not literate, so he's not so good with calendars, etc. He's retired, so it's not like he needs to track the days at all. He just needs to know when it's Sunday so he can go to church and that's about it. So I was actually beginning to wonder if he knew what day it was, but as I went to leave he finally brought it up.

The going-away party for Mike was ok, but I left and came home (ta dah, I'm here, right?). I wasn't having that great a time, and I was being bombarded with jokes and questions about my day off, because apparently not a single person knew why and no one actually asked directly so I didn't say. I didn't want to dampen the mood.

Plus I'm a little uncomfortable getting drunk around the office girls. A little afraid some morning I'll wake up and remember something vague about telling two of them I have a big crush on them. "Crush". Seems so childish when I put it that way. Doesn't matter, they're both "taken" already.

So, the question of the day seems to be: "How was your day off?" Fine, thanks. I've lied to everybody else and said that, why not you too? Truth is, it wasn't fanstastic, it wasn't terrible. I haven't been thrilled with laughter, and I haven't broken down sobbing either. It's just one more boring melancholy day like so many others I've been having lately anyway. And yes, as I do every year, I've spent much of it in reflection. Reflection on my mother and her death, reflection on my life since then, reflection on where my life is now, reflection on where I want my life to go next.

Somewhere more interesting than here. And that's about all I can say.