Coming to Terms Turns Thirteen

...And speaking of still being able to write things that make sense...

I've been doing this for thirteen years, now.  

Not exactly going strong anymore, but still going.

In fact, puttering along so weakly that I almost missed the occasion.  But not altogether.  

Happy Blogoversary to me.  To me and "Coming to Terms." To us.

 

No Debate

Posted this to Facebook yesterday, and it deserves a place here, as well...if only to confirm that, yes, I DO still write things that make sense.  And, I think, it needs to be part of my personal record of this moment in American history:

Just for the record: I have no intention of watching the debate tonight. That has been my policy for decades, ever since I realized that these televised opportunities for the candidates to look "presidential" and spew canned campaign talking points bear no resemblance to actual "debates." I don't know about anyone else, but I really can't stand to watch potential leaders of the free world NOT answer even the inane, non sequitur questions the moderators are allowed to ask; instead seizing upon any opportunity to recite a prepared text on a talking point that more than likely barely brushes up against the topic of the question asked. Add Donald Trump to that mix, and you have the potential for a train wreck of epic proportions. Which, I realize, is the bread and butter of our intrepid 21st century American media, but nothing I have the slightest desire to witness. I will be outside weeding my gardens and cleaning my greenhouse tonight, thank you very much.

Negotiating the Cease-Fire

I keep forgetting that our marriage is not a union.  It's a truce. 

It passed into that realm in 2010, when I understood there was no doubt that if I continued trying to pilot that restaurant, one of the primary casualties—along with my sanity and my health—was going to be my marriage.  Clearly, in order to preserve any crumb of what remained of my bond with my husband, I had to sever my attachment to the thing that had so starkly highlighted the decay of our regard for one another.

When we closed the doors on that disaster in 2011, I remember being desperate for peace.  And while the mere act of walking away from the endless mountain of aggravation, stress and frustration that was the Old Town Café dissolved the lion’s share of threats to the peace I craved, it didn’t take long for me to see that I had run away from a forest fire and into a briar patch. 

The husband and I were left glaring at each other over a thorny field of anger, hurt and resentment.  Eventually, we hammered out a treaty.  Not so much through negotiation as through a series of tactical retreats.  As long as we had calm, we had peace.  But the slightest stress—from an unexpected car repair to having to entertain out-of-town guests—would find one of us (usually him) losing it and the other (usually me) falling back and throwing up a wall. 

Yes…it’s been five and a half years.  And from the Peanut Gallery, I can hear jeers of “Get over it, already!”  I don’t think anyone in the world would like to see that more than I would.  But this isn’t something one “gets over.”  Any more than the death of a loved one or the loss of a home or the end of a satisfying career.  Like everything in life, it’s not a matter of “getting over it” at all. All one can do is accept the new normal and keep walking.  And above all, try not to dwell on when “normal” was so much more than it is now.

We mostly have peace now.  We are companionable, possibly even fond of each other, much of the time.  Sometimes I forget that our relationship is not healed, not what it once was, certainly not what I ever hoped it would be.  Then something happens, some nameless, invisible thing knocks up against and upsets our peace.  At those times, I understand that the best thing I can do is take myself physically away for awhile.  Luckily, I have a building and a business 100 miles away from here that can always use a day or two of my attention. 

So I sigh.  And I go.  And when I come back, there is peace again.  Until the next time.     

Doo-doo-doo-doo

Don't you just want to put on a pith helmet and dark glasses every time you go on the internet?  Of maybe a hazmat suit... 

Everything is so slimy and ugly these days, to the point of dark surrealism.  The primaries were a disaster.  The Republicans presented their usual clown car, and the Democrats were determined to eat themselves alive.  Now that the smoke has cleared, Hillary may have been irreparably damaged, and I can hardly fathom the idea of Donald Trump even running for president, much less winning. 

I keep seeing these reports that Trump's number are in the shitter...that he's only polling at 40%.  40%?  While one should be encouraged by those numbers, this one is actually flabbergasted that 40% of anybody would even entertain the notion of Donald Trump as leader of the free world.  Oh. My God. 

I keep thinking I will wake up to find this has all been some kind of nightmare.  But the nightmare would have to have started in November of 2000, when George W. Bush purloined the presidency and the GOP grabbed the country by the throat and threw it to the mat.

Too many years to be just a nightmare.  Maybe I've been in a coma.   Or the Twilight Zone...

Who do we get to write us out of this mess?  Where is Rod Serling when you need him?