First there was the date.
I had already decided that perhaps men and I are not a very good mix right now. That perhaps I am still just a tad too broken and haven’t been glued back together correctly with the pieces in the right places yet. You know, my heart, my big beautiful bleeding heart? It’s still stuck on my sleeve where everyone can see it and needs to be put back in my chest, for one thing. Plus there’s the fact that I haven’t had sex in so long with anyone other than myself and those toys under my bed that I’m thinking I may not even know how anymore. I might need to hire someone just to give me some refresher lessons or something?
Still, he seemed nice enough. At least on the telephone, he did. It has been a long time since anyone of either sex has asked me out for any reason at all, so since he was rather insistent that I go out with him and I wasn’t doing anything else other than sorting my own socks and picking dog hair off the cushions on the couch I thought I might as well give it a go.
Which is how I found myself last Saturday night in a bar I’ve never been in before somewhere not in Salt Lake. I knew things were not going to go well when I arrived and was greeted with “I thought you were going to be younger! You sound like you’re 23 on the telephone!” Not knowing quite how to respond to these words coming from a nearly 50 year old man, I stammered, “I’m 17 in my head. Does that count for anything?”
The next words from him didn’t help matters at all.
“No, seriously. How old are you. You’ve got to be at least 30!”
Well, maybe the man also needed glasses as well as breath mints! Clearly, though, I was not the woman he was expecting. I was far too old for him. I tried not to let this bother me. The fact that he was older than me and I was too old for him. I really did. I tried to remain friendly and cordial and just to have a good time despite his awkward groping at my body (a body that he already told me was too old for him!).
Finally, I made my excuses and told him it was time for me to go. “But when will we get together again?,” he asked.
“When you’re 17!”, I said.
On the drive home I got angrier and angrier. Not at the 50 year old man in search of his 20-something trophy wife, actually. Just angry at the entire situation. This is not the life I signed up for. I’m angry at David. For walking out. I’m angry at myself for marrying David in the first place. For trusting him to love me till “death do us part.” For letting myself believe in happily ever after. For spending 10 years with him to end up right here. Alone. In Utah. Picking dog hair off the sofa on a Saturday night.
Working 60 hour weeks for Sundance and getting very little sleep did nothing to improve upon the situation. If anything it made it worse. I spiraled. Quickly. I became a color of blue I haven’t been in quite some time and I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.
My days were consumed with being the Sundance Angel (I was so dubbed) and bestowing goodness upon all who came in contact with me. But inside, deep inside, I was really crumbling and hurting. Sadness was creeping in the strangest of places and I would find myself crying because the coffee wasn’t hot enough or the dogs were barking when I felt they should.just.be.quiet.
My very soul was blue. Deep, dark, scary blue. It frightened me and I was unsure what to do.
I’ve been eating cashews my whole life without nary an issue. It is David who is allergic to cashews. An allergy he had as a child and refused to even test when we were married. It made me nuts.
I adore cashews. Especially raw ones turned into other things like delicious “cheese” spreads. When you’re a vegetarian, nuts are a real staple of your diet. Cashews are among my favorites.
I was eating a few raw cashews. I was Angry. I was Deep, dark, scary, blue.
My throat started to swell and my chest started to constrict. Was this a panic attack or was I having an allergic reaction to the cashews? I am allergic to avocados and the sensation I was having felt exactly like what happens when I accidentally eat avocados.
Exactly.
Of course, because I am me, I had to wait it out and see for a while before I actually did anything about it. With my avocado reaction, waiting can be deadly. Why I thought I should wait and see with this EXACT SAME REACTION is a testament to the depths of my angry deep dark scary blueness. I was not thinking clearly.
I was thinking, also, about the dogs. Who would take care of them if I ended up in the hospital? Better of course to just DIE, you know. Because if I just keeled right over right there on the couch while sorting socks and picking off dog hair and wondering about my reaction to the raw cashews, well, at least that would take care of the angry deep dark scary blue place and the dogs would quite possibly bark and someone would come to take care of them.
Amazing how our minds work in these situations, isn’t it?
I can promise you that this is not the Internet’s first missive being written from the great beyond (where ever that may be) and that I did, in fact, take myself to Urgent Care. I can now add Cashews to the list of things to which I am allergic. Very, very, very allergic. Fall over and die allergic. If you want to kill me (and I know you’re out there, you people who do want to kill me), give me an avocado and cashew sandwich. And serve it to me while I’m standing in a patch of poison ivy. That should just about do the trick.
The upshot of all of this is that my little trip to Urgent Care along with my imagined near-death experience seems to have dissipated the anger and deep dark scary blue feelings. Of course, it also helps that I had a double session with my therapist.
Let’s just say there were a series of very unfortunate events. A series of very unfortunate events that, in retrospect, have proved quite fortunate.
