Where the time goes

A melancholy has settled this week. It’s just sort of hovering around, following me like Eeyore’s little personal rain cloud, drizzling on my head. Unrelenting, but not torrential. I know exactly where it came from, but I’m not up to hashing out the introspective vomit here—it’s too deeply rooted, winding around everything I am like brambles, sharp and suffocating all at once.

The urge to get into bed and never get out again is pretty strong, all things considered.

My body is rebelling. For a year now, I’ve woken up with my right jaw joint out of place, needing to be popped back in before I can function normally. There’s a fracture in my night guard on that side. My dentist’s jaw hit the floor when he saw it the other week, and I suggested that perhaps I turn into the Hulk in my sleep. It’s a possibility. My left trapezius feels like a steel bridge cable and is so tightly wound that my left arm—which doesn’t need any help doing this, thanks very much, it does it on its own just fine—is sitting far enough away from where it should be that if I move or sleep incorrectly it finds its happy partially-dislocated spot and takes up residence there instead. Everything from my mid-back up is tighttighttight. I know it has to do with stress levels and ::gesticulates wildly at the universe and all its nonsense::, and I know that eventually it will pass, but for now I’m existing in a permanent state of “Ow”. You’d think I’d be slamming back Advil like Skittles, but I’m not. The discomfort reminds me that I am, in fact, alive and able to feel…anything, really.

Everything feels heavy. And I finally caved and bought a weighted blanket. How’s that for irony?

And somehow time has sped up. I realize that this is a physical impossibility, but it seems to be passing at an alarming pace, and I don’t know where it’s going, and I know I’m not filling it the way I could or should, but that part doesn’t bother me as much as the rate at which weekends seem to come—and go. It’s all a blur, a fog, nebulous in how it shifts and floats, adhering to no one’s agenda but its own. We mark the passage, count the days, stumble blindly onward. It’s all we can do, really.

I’m leaning into this because fighting it will only wear me out.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We’re all in the same boat right now—we’re just on different decks. I’m on a lower one at the moment. I’ll move when I’m good and ready. For now, I’m going to put on my “Low” playlist and have every sad song I own piped into my ear, one, after the other, after the other…

It’s okay not to be okay.

It’s okay to treat yourself gently.

The sun will still come up tomorrow.

Fairhaven Convention: Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Perspective

I was driving to the dentist the other day, and I passed the street where at one time I would turn right and go a bit into the neighborhood to my then-boss's house to stay with her dogs while she and her husband were traveling, and then again while they were staging their first international relocation. I got a bit nostalgic. Nostalgic about the job I had at the time--the company I was working for. Nostalgic about those two furry reprobates who brought me so much joy. Nostalgic about a friend who has spent the time between then and now bouncing back and forth between Bahrain and Thailand--someone I used to see every day, reduced now to just pictures on Facebook.

Of course, all of that happened in the summer of 2012.

I know we all think 2020 was bad, and it was. It was fucking awful. Terrible things happened. We're still in the aftershock phase. 

 But for me, 2012 was worse.

I've told y'all about 2012 before, I know. In 2012 I ended a relationship, lost two grandparents in three weeks, and was forced to move in with my grandmother because I couldn't afford to live on my own anywhere I wouldn't get stabbed every evening when I came home. It was not a fun year, on the whole. Oh, yes, there were a couple of things that happened in 2012 that were positive. I finally had health insurance again and was able to see a mental health professional and get some help, and some meds to help silence some of the voices in my head and keep my heart from feeling like it was going to burst out of my chest at any moment. A very dear friend of mine got married. It was the best wedding I've ever been to--and that's saying something, because I hate weddings. 

But mostly, 2012 was really, really shitty.

So when I think of all the nonsense we've endured in the last year--and it was terrible--I can't help but think that I've weathered worse.

"Well thank you very much, Jerry!"

 Look, I'm going to rabbit on for a hot minute about something that's keeping me sane right now, okay? Okay.

The Good Life (alternately titled Good Neighbors) ran on the BBC for four seasons and two specials between 1975 and 1978. The show is centered around two couples, the Goods and the Leadbetters, who are neighbors with staggeringly different lifestyles. It doesn't start off that way, but Tom Good gets an itch to abandon the material and go self sufficient--in suburbia. Hilarity and heartstring-tugging ensues.

 

The Good Life opening credits, BBC 1975

For fellow aficionados of 'vintage' British television, you'll find that this show is full of familiar names and faces. The core cast consists of Richard Briers, Paul Eddington, Penelope Keith, and Felicity Kendal, and was written by Bob Larbey and John Esmonde. For anyone who looks at that list and goes, "Huh?", just know that anything written by Bob Larbey is gold, and he was writing prolifically during an era of immense acting talent, so his gold got platinum edging. 

BBC 1975

I could give you a plot synopsis or wax poetic about my deep and unyielding adoration of Felicity Kendal (1981 'Rear of the Year' for good reason!), but I'll let you decide if you want to give the show a watch and find things out for yourself. It's currently free (with ads) on IMDB TV, available on Amazon's BritBox subscription, and apparently bootlegged on Daily Motion, but you didn't hear that last part from me.

I think the thing I really want to say about this program and its sanity-retaining qualities for me in the current ::flails dramatically at everything:: is that it is one of the most wonderfully comfortable, gentle shows that has ever been produced in the history of television. Yes, it's a product of its time, and as such it has some underlying themes and a few moments that wouldn't fly today, but on the whole, it holds up. What holds it up is its heart and humanity. It's a sweet, meandering sort of program, full of silliness and honesty and characters you can identify with in one way or another. Everybody knows a Margo Leadbetter, it's just a fact. Switching on The Good Life is like inviting old friends into my living room in the evenings, and since I can't have the real thing right now I'll take what I can get, and if what I can get is Tom doing that tuneless whistling, Jerry looking martyred, Margo despairing over the most recent Music Society fiasco, and Barbara in dungarees being adorable, I'm okay with that.

Though I'm sure Margo would be blaming Jerry for the pandemic, somehow. Oh, Margo.

BBC 1975

::seethe::

Certain current events ::COUGHtexasCOUGH:: find me wishing death and destruction upon certain parties. My mind is a maelstrom of vitriol and spite, and I’m thinking horrible, hateful things. In general I try to avoid this line of thought, regardless of the circumstances, because it’s just not productive. All it does is wear me out, and the subjects of my seething never know they’re being seethed at, so it’s the ultimate exercise in futility.

Still. I’m mad as hell.

But I’m going to breathe and let it go and think about this instead. Sound good to you? Okay, then.

Joshua Wright -- https://joshuawright.net/slack-wyrm-256.html

Feel better? Surprisingly, so do I.