Yosemite Sam

I officially and unequivocally hate everything right now.  Except maybe my glass of red wine.  I did think this pinot noir was going to be a little denser fruit, but I guess you can’t have everything.  As I write this, there’s a voice inside of me jumping up and down, fists pumping in the air (kind of like Yosemite Sam from Bugs Bunny) and it’s saying, “No fair, no fair.  I never get what I want.  Never.”  I know this sounds childish, but please don’t confuse the absolute despair and self-hatred I currently feel with spoiled, childish behavior.  If I were spoiled, I would have thrown the f*$%#(@ wine glass across the room just to watch it go splat and break against the hideous set of mirrored closet doors that line almost an entire wall of my bedroom.  I decided earlier today that rather than live in this house, we’re just squatters.  Someday we’ll have a pretty house again.  (And I am dying to snarl–That day isn’t today, is it?  No.  It’s definitely not.)

There are people out there in the world who are well-meaning and truly want to help.  They might tell me to breathe.  To that, I would have an abrupt reply.  It might involve a gesture, but I’ll leave it up to your imagination.

If I were just mean right now, that would be one thing.  The self-loathing is another part and I know enough to give it a good shake by the collar and then let it sit on a hard wooden chair in the kitchen until it gets bored, gives up and slinks home.  But there’s this woozy, heartbroken piece underneath it all that keeps welling up, only to have the steel-toe booted cavalry come riding in ready to kick ass. The only problem with this dim-witted cavalry is that they keep tying me up in tight ropes, as though I’m the bad guy.

A 91 year old woman with a walker came to our door tonight.  She banged loudly on the door and when we opened it, she was crying and speaking Spanish frantically.  She was lost and didn’t know where she lived and didn’t speak English beyond–Thank you honey–which she said to Scott and I over and over.  The next door neighbor speaks Spanish and we sort of guessed that she lives at the retirement home around the corner and we got her settled back in.

I don’t tell you this to make myself look good.  I love the fact that I live in a neighborhood where people help each other.  I love that my girls get to see  adults around them helping a total stranger in need, to know that this is part of what people do for each other.  But it also occurs to me that for all the naysayers out there who question whether a hormonal woman can ever run this country, I say this…Well, first I curse you soundly and throw you to the lions.  And then I point to the fact that my hormonal madness generally comes on at the end of the day when there’s less needed of me, but when the moment comes and someone’s abuela can’t find her way back home, this mamacita kicks it into action and flies her home safe.

No, this wasn’t the RED nuke button panic or save the world situation.  ( I seem to recall that men invented those bombs anyway.)  But I handled it without thinking, “Oh, I need to eat chocolate or punch someone in the face for looking at me the wrong way.” I just did what needed to be done.

A friend once called this womanly hormonal occurrence, The Time of Truth.  I used to think that was great and we should all adopt the terminology.  I even wrote it up on this blog.  But there’s only partial truth here.  Because it isn’t the truth that I’m an unloved, ugly failure.  (Right?  I mean you were just pausing there before speaking up and telling me how beautiful I look with mascara smeared around my puffy eyes.  And you’re nodding because nodding is a sign of love and acceptance.  It’s not that you agree that I’m unloved, a failure and/or ugly.  Do you?  Sure, I’m a little insecure just now and kind of a mess, but I still look okay, right?)

I’m trying not to suck down my wine like it’s…I was going to say water, but I hate drinking water.  So let’s just say, I’m trying to drink my wine like it’s water, play Keep Away from the humans I love until this passes and tell myself some nice things or at least neutral things.  (I can’t bullshit myself by pouring it on too thick.  Don’t look at me like I’m schizophrenic.  Everyone I’ve ever met–except Thich Nhat Hanh–gets mean and judgmental inside the privacy of their own head at least sometimes.)  I am even breathing.  Mostly I seem to exhale, loudly enough that anyone living on our block can tell how hard I am trying not to go ballistic over the fact that the dog won’t stop scratching and the last person to use the sponge didn’t wring it out.  So this is a start.  Exhaling is better than nothing.