To bail or not to bail?

So. The second part of my Deep Red trip involves going deeper into the Deep Red to my father's house. He always comes to my sister's home about 6 hours away from his when I come to visit--for all holidays and in the summer. My sister and father have long suggested that I go down to my father's house for the 4th, which my sister, her husband, and four kids always do. My sister has many high school friends in this tiny Southern town, so she enjoys going. My father lives close to a tennis club, so the kids play tennis and swim all day. I got the hell out of that town as fast as I could within days of graduating from high school. My mother left about a year later.

So. This trip has already been difficult on a number of levels. I've been here a week. I have not had much time to myself and have certainly not made even a dent in the huge amount of work I have needed to get done while here. There are . . . tensions between my mother and me. I also miss The Someone desperately. (No small part of this is about missing The Someone desperately. What I am realizing even more here is how completely fulfilling being with The Someone is. If I did not have the contrast of knowing an amazingly full and rich and bright and beautiful life with The Someone, I might not even fully understand the lunacy of what goes on here. I would note it, but I would note it as something necessary and to be endured until I figured out what flaw in me needed to be overcome to make it right.) Without going into too much detail, I will say that I feel that my very identity is being sucked down some cosmic drain and there is nothing I can do about it. I am disappearing.

So. This trip farther South to my father's house? It's going to be traumatic. Every time I have walked into that house since I left, or maybe since my mother left, I have pretty much burst into quiet tears that never quite go away until I do. It's also going to be chaotic. Seven people and three dogs in a three-bedroom house. Normally this would be fine and even fun, but I need some time and space for myself, even the tiniest bit, right now and that's just not going to happen. My mother is very upset that I am leaving here and spending the last week of my trip away from her. So that's the emotional toll. Then there's the psychic toll. I am fairly certain my father's house is farther down the cosmic drain.

So. I feel like a selfish bitch, but I am seriously considering changing my plane tickets, flying out of here early, skipping the journey farther south part of the trip entirely. I feel guilty at even the thought, so it probably will not happen. But why should I do something that is so clearly not good for me? So damaging? So traumatic? Is the point to walk through it and learn what I can learn or is the point to know when and how I need to take care of myself and to do it?

My Word of the Day totally gets me

Word of the Day for Wednesday, June 25, 2008

forlorn \fur-LORN; for-\, adjective:

1. Sad and lonely because deserted, abandoned, or lost.
2. Bereft; forsaken.
3. Wretched or pitiful in appearance or condition.
4. Almost hopeless; desperate.

Henry had felt guilty at abandoning his sister; he had married not once but twice, leaving Rose forlorn.
-- Anita Brookner, Visitors

In these forlorn regions of unknowable dreary space, this reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.
-- Francis Spufford, I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination

Bloch remembers that Stephen was a member of the Milk Squad, comprised of children who were considered to need extra nutrition, and early photographs do show him as one of the smaller boys, in the front row, looking forlorn.
-- Meryle Secrest, Stephen Sondheim: A Life

Forlorn comes from Old English forleosan, "to abandon," from for- + leosan, "to lose."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for forlorn

I don't like being away from The Someone. And by "don't like" I mean that I feel like I might die. This is a new feeling. I have missed significant others in the past, but as a person who does not mind spending a lot of time alone, separations--even long ones--were always basically fine. Now? Part of me is here in the Deep Red, doing this and that with my family. And part of me is perpetually absorbed in thoughts of The Someone. All of me is longing to see The Someone and pathetically heartbroken that it will be twelve days before I do. Forlorn gorgon.

Random Bullets of Chaos and Joy

• I hereby declare this the Summer of Chaos and Joy. I am also going to go ahead and admit to myself that this will probably be a summer of light blogging. Too much joy. Too much chaos. I should point out that both "too much" and "chaos" are as joyful as joy to me.
• I am hands down head over heels in love with The Someone. In. Love. Bigly.
• I have recently pissed off important people at work. Again.
• I have recently made friends with important people at work. Yay!
• I just spent an amazing few days with my favorite person in Favorite City. Bliss.
• I leave on Monday for two weeks in the Deep Red. Pretty much dreading this.
• Work projects languish. I would make a list here of everything I need to do before summer's end, but if I did the space-time continuum would spontaneously explode.
• The Someone is exquisite. You have no idea.
• I must work 2-3 hours a day while with family in the Deep Red. Please advise.
• If you drink many bottles of this wine, you will have a vicious vicious hangover. Trust me: it is The Brain Science (as explained by The Wine Guy at the local liquor store) that proves it. If you do it with a bunch of fun and fabulous people in New York, it will be worth it.
• This morning I realized that The Someone and I have been together in four states (states as in the United, not psychological, physical, spiritual--feel like we have been in many more than four of some of these together) in the past seven weeks. (By the way--Happy Anniversary, TS.) We are fabulous gypsies.

Just going to let Bobby Z say it for me

I know at some point I said that if I did a post about Buddhism or my new meditation practices, it would be code for "that asshat at work is up to more ass haberdashery." But I just don't have the zen in me, folks. No, no I do not.

So let's enjoy this repeat musical interlude with the Dylan and videophorically give the melodiphoric finger to those idiotic Idiot Winds in our lives.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

It's hard not to want to live in flip flops and little dresses when summer rolls around, but I am thinking solid colors, clean lines, a girly ruffle here, some platinum and kohl rock-n-roll there, and for the foreseeable future--because I need my bad-ass imaginary haircut and my ubiquitous imaginary cigarette--Jean Seberg. And maybe some hats. I have been known to rock a summer hat and rock it well.






As always, click on the pics for original sources and more information