Monday morning quiet

I'm lost. I'm old. I feel old. A friend told me it was because I was officially in my upper 20s. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, upper 20s is young, childlike even, but when I think about the 27 years that I've lived on this earth and how it only feels like 8 or so have actually passed, it scares me because I wonder how quickly the next 27 will go, the next 42, the next 60, and then I'll be dead. Death doesn't scare me, my own death anyway, but the death of my loved ones does, and the loss of time with them and the loss of being here, breathing in and out, impacting this earth and creating something good. I'm feeling like I'm running out of time for that. I've always felt like I was running to something, hurrying up, and that maybe I won't have the luxury of 70 or 80 good years here, not feeling and remembering and being in all of them anyway.

My parents' 35th anniversary is this year. My dad told me he feels like it's still 1985 and that we should all still be little children running around his backyard. 

I watch people. I watch them and I think about their separate lives, the people that they know, the experiences they've had, the struggles and joys they share with everyone else, making them human, but as a human still separate, still alone, everyone in their bubble. That's a real person, I think, he has a mother somewhere, he has his own life and his own problems, and everyday he gets up and goes to work like the rest of us, never knowing that I exist or that my world exists or even caring about it. I want to know everyone. I think it's sad that there are people on my own street that I've never seen, not in full up-close focus, just drive-by glances through waving fingers. Why I choose, why we choose, the people with whom we share our lives, I'll never understand, not fully. I'm picky with myself, only showing myself to a few when I want to be exposed, utterly open and honest, with everyone, telling everyone my story so they will tell me theirs.

I'm not a writer. I say this because I am unable to write about anyone other than myself, about anything other than my own thoughts and way of being. I can't write fiction. It just doesn't come to me. It seems fake because it is fake. I can fully express my thoughts with my words, most of the time, and most of the time I can make them seem more intriguing than they probably are in reality. So I hope that's enough. I would like to tell stories but I have few stories to tell from my own life, and that is all of which I am capable. 

The story of my life this morning: My green loveseat with the reclining arms makes a pretty good desk. No one has a piece like this, the upholsterer told me when I took it to him last summer-- this antique from my great-aunt's large collection, the beige and orange ruffled rose pattern hiding unknowingly clean and modern lines, appearing suddenly in its new olive green low-pile velvet dress. I use it as a chaise, one arm completely down on which I stretch my sweat-panted legs, the other up to support my back, the laptop in it's named place. Bub sleeps in the dark across the room, curled up on my husband's couch on one of my granny's quilts, snug as a bug, and the cat sits on the arm of the loveseat behind my head, trying every now and then to groom me, as a mother with her kit. I swat at her lovingly. The tv is off and the clouds have silenced the birds; the only sounds are my fingers tapping on these shallow keys and the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen to my left. I just finished a mushy bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, a late, unsatisfying breakfast. I should have been at my office desk two and a half hours ago, but I awoke with those shiny lights in front of my eyes and immediately popped a pill and went back to sleep. Always Mondays, always this time of the month. Bub just woke up and looked across at me, surprised to see me still here. I guess I need to get in the shower, a long and warm one, and wash this all away.