Perspective

I have writers block.

Partly because of the fantastic fallout from the last blog post, fallout which included the male phone tree; one ex-girlfriend who filled me in on all the reasons it would never work, including my lack of supermodel status (wait, what?); and some true learning moments about what happens when everyone reads about your life and comes to their own erroneous conclusion about what you meant and then run with it in a big (and loud) way.
It was a strange sensation, watching your story unravel into some other story with all of the new story's belongings unpacking themselves in your life.
Like strangers who have mistaken you for someone else and leave off where they left off with the person they think you are. Then, when you protest they think you are still upset about the tiff you had years ago in Thailand.

If you read the last episode, the follow up text from the subject (victim) was priceless: 'Of course I'll read your book when you write it.'
I've perfected the cringe-laugh over the years. You can be mildly mortified, but you can't not laugh at a response like that.

It was a few days after that text that the alternative reading of my story brought in it's luggage and started unpacking it in my life.
During much of it I felt like I was the new Bob Newhart.


Then a family emergency hit and tragedy started hovering about waiting for it's opportunity to strike. Watching someone you love in pain in the hospital and the square wheels of the medical system getting around to taking care of them, along with the waves of waiting for doctors to get around to telling you the chances we would all walk out of there, how much time we might have, what risks and what options, exhausts you and messes with your head like little else. The tension, worry, lack of normal sleep add up.

Whoever said that this kind of thing puts things in perspective was not talking about me.
For me the raw, worried, holding your breath time throws everything way out of perspective. The little things you can handle so well, or even kinda-sorta well on a regular day become excruciating.
The crevices that usually hold the little things are all already full from all the big things, and there is no room for rejection, difficult memories to run around in your feed, or even the blender not to work.
In my recent days of 'things in perspective' the car broke down and I ended up crying on the phone to the next person who called about the one time man of my dreams having a baby with his new wife, even though he ended it with me because he wanted to raise his children alone and never wanted to get married and thought someday I might.
Since about everything the man ever said to me he has since proved was slush, on a normal week I wouldn't be bothered with it anymore.

Who said near death puts things into perspective?
Not me. Not the girl who somehow felt hurt that the person she decided needed to be there for her right then wasn't. This reaction despite him not really ever saying he would be.

Not me, who allowed myself this time to confront a lost cause, forfeiting any attempt at grace to electronically batter someone for being a fake.

I'm far better at perspective when I've slept normally, without heart racing panic every time the phone rings, wondering how you could ever live without a loved one.
Sure, this was far more important than anything else going on, but it was all the emotional space allotted.
For the scared for my family version of me it meant that at any given moment... one sticky drip from crying over the ice-cream melting.

It's a damned good thing my new hair cut turned out so freaking cool.