Liz was technically my great aunt: she was in her early 80s, so she lived a relatively long life. But her death came out of the blue; she hadn't been ill at all, except for the various standard complaints of old age. Then she got a blood clot in her brain on Sunday morning and died.
I feel like a jerk because her birthday was three weeks ago. I had meant to write to her, but hadn't gotten around to it. There is no way now to amend for this.
What I'm troubled by is the fact that this regret only matters to me. It cannot matter to Liz now. Nothing can matter to her. Liz is dead. All the matters of her life are over, and that is that. Someday nothing will matter to my mother. And nothing will matter to my husband. And nothing will matter to me. And given that fact, it is hard for me to say why anything matters now.
***
I had my midlife crisis extremely prematurely. Starting in junior high or so, adults -- my relations and teachers, mostly -- fed me a lot of bullshit about how I was Special and Talented and Smart, and was definitely going to succeed in life. I don't think they were deliberately setting me up to fail, and I don't even think most of them were lying. Given where I'm from, I was Special and Talented and Smart, and seemed like a good bet, at least compared to the general population of my peers, to succeed in life. I went to college and continued to receive reassurances about my future. I went to (a very prestigious) graduate school, having been reassured by an actual, professional literary author who was mentoring me at the time that some day I would write books for a living.
Of course, this was all horseshit. I'm not saying it was ill-intentioned horseshit, but come on. My imminent disappointment began to make itself felt in my final term of graduate school. I seemed to know without knowing. I began to suffer from panic attacks. I developed what I called a "doom cloud"; it is difficult to describe what this was, other than to say that there was a constant, dark weight at the back of my mind. It wasn't composed of any specific or articulated thoughts -- just a layer of discontent and anxiety that was my constant, looming companion.
I finished my thesis and graduated with my masters, magna cum laude. One of my advisors at the time gave me the following career advice: "Clean up your thesis and then get an agent." Really. That was it. I tried to place a few of the stories from my thesis, but that went no where. I was unemployed for nine months while I lived with my (also unemployed) husband in what I can only describe as a garret in the ghetto. I applied for a variety of jobs, and finally was hired as a Clerk Typist II for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. I answered the phone in a windowless room and performed minor clerical functions. Everyone assured me that this was a Good Job, because I had Benefits, and would someday retire with a Pension.
I honestly thought about killing myself almost every day. I had dark and violent thoughts I couldn't suppress. I concluded that I couldn't actually kill myself because 1) my mother and Ted would feel so bad, and 2) Jesus would be angry. So instead I would walk along the edge of the sidewalk at my lunch hour and to and from the bus stop and hope that I got hit by a bus.
I quit my job to go back to school for a career that I didn't particularly want. Everyone had told me that I absolutely couldn't quit such a Good Job, so I studied for and took the LSATs and got a scholarship to go to law school, because at the rate I was going, I was never going to get a bus to hit and kill me. Going Back to School is a socially acceptable reason to quit a job -- apparently, violent depression is not. More could be said about how fucked up that is, but I'll just leave it there for you to contemplate.
I ended up dropping out of law school because it was expensive and I didn't want to be a lawyer. But by then I was working part time as an adjunct, a job I like, and which I now do "full time" (at least for two-thirds of the year), so everything worked out. Plus I didn't dislike law school per se -- I like learning things, and the atmosphere of academia is like a warm blanket to me. My doom cloud finally dissipated.
My point is that all of this took a lot of readjustment. Once it became clear in my mid-20s that I was not going to Succeed as promised, I became very depressed, and the prospect of a lifetime at that Good Job made me, as I said, honestly want to die. I don't know if other people find it so difficult to live in the world, but it's clearly difficult for me. Finding a way to do it took a few years. I decided that my only ambition was to live a happy life (that was still guided at least in theory by moral principles). Eating curry and drinking wine and watching Star Trek make me happy: today I will eat curry and drink wine and watch Star Trek. Visiting with my friends makes me happy: today I will visit my friends. Reading books makes me happy: today I will read a book. Mission accomplished, mission accomplished, mission accomplished.
I am, basically, happy. I love my husband and our little family of cats. I have good friends and enjoy myself most days, though I wish we had more money -- but who doesn't?
But it is a very small life.
And small lives don't stand up to death well, do they? Someday you will wake up and not finish out the day. You will die, and nothing will matter to you again. And so what will have been the point of all that mattered previously? Even if it was difficult to live in the world, so what? You're dead now. So what if you found a way to be happy, eating curry and drinking wine? You're dead now. I realize that this is solipsism and nihilism, but there it is. I don't know -- I guess I just haven't been in a very good mood since Sunday.
P.S. Still haven't heard from God. After 30 years, I'm starting to feel a little stood up.
***
As to all of that fun stuff: on Thursday, Ted and I went to see Friends Sarah and Roger host a dance recital at their Arthur Murray studio. It reminded me of when I was little and took jazz dance classes at the YMCA, and we would have little performances for our parents periodically. Except this event was for grown ups. We chatted with Friends Saundra and Neilbert -- Neilbert even danced a rhumba! -- and got to see Roger's newly grown ponytail in action: he is bringing the Latin Heat, dear readers.
On Friday we had dinner with Friends Carley and Lindsi. It was Lindsi's birthday, and she decided to nom at Pusadee's Garden, in our hood. I was so, so happy to not cook dinner. Then they both came back to our place for some gin 'n' tonics, and finally Sarah stopped by, too.
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| Apparently, this is what tailgating looks like. |
On Saturday, I tailgated for the first time in my life. Ted and I and Carley and her boyfriend Chris and Friend Nick all had tickets to the Pirates game. I hate baseball: baseball is boring as shit. BUT. After the baseball game THERE WAS A BOYZ II MEN CONCERT. HOLY SHIT YINZ GUYS. ABC BBD. Chris has a big truck, and so we decided to tailgate before the game. This turns out to be basically sitting in a parking lot while eating and drinking. Carley brought fish sammiches with guacamole and cilantro; I brought ginger-stewed beets, haluski, and Doritos; Nick brought beer. We had an unusually healthy tailgate, is what I'm saying, but it was nice, and when Chris helped some other parking lot drinker jump his car, the guy gave him $20, which covered the price of our own parking. Sweet.
But then a cop told us we had to clear out of the parking lot, so we had to go into the actual baseball game. It was only the fourth inning. Good Lord, getting through that baseball was interminable, especially because I couldn't afford to buy All The Beer. SEVEN FUCKING DOLLARS FOR BUD LIGHT. Nick, I think feeling a deep sympathy for me, even though he loves baseball, actually bought me a $7 Bud Light. I literally was so grateful I teared up a little. I then scraped together $7 of my own for another godawful beer. These two beers got me through to the end of the baseball.
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| SO INTERMINABLE. |
The baseball was made even more interminable by the world's most obnoxious eight-year-old boy, who was sitting next to us. His mother was not paying any attention to him, natch, and every 15 or 20 minutes or so, he would want to exit the row, forcing all five of us to stand up while he filed past, obnoxiously shouting, "Excuse me! Excuse me! Coming through! Make way!" Then a few moments later he would realize that he had forgotten money, or whatever, and come back through. Then go back out again. Over and over again. So eventually, every time he came past, I said something hateful to him. "You're an asshole." "I hope you fall down the stairs." He finally responded to me when I said, "I hate you." "Why?" "Because you're obnoxious. GO SIT DOWN."
Yes, I was a bitch to an eight year old. No, I have no regrets.
But finally, my trials over, Boyz II Men began to perform. 30,000 people sang along to "On Bended Knee". They played all the hits. It was fantastic. The nostalgia was rolling out of PNC Park and wafting down the river, eastward into the night (in the direction of Motown Philly, of course). Ted had not anticipated any of this; he had no idea everyone my age in the park was going to wig the fuck out. It's kind of a weird phenomenon. It's not like I'd buy a new CD from Boyz II Men. Their moment is more or less over. But their moment was so formative of my and Carley's junior high school years that we sat through most of a Pirates baseball game so that we could sing along at the top of our lungs to "End of the Road". I don't know if this is good or bad for the Boyz, sad or reassuring. In any case, they've got an album of covers coming out. They sang a Journey cover on Saturday. If nothing else, they know their audience.
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| But Pittsburgh is The Best. Ever. |
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