"I've Been Thinking About You. . . . "

Originally Posted Wednesday, September 25, 2013

I got an email from the person in this picture the other day.  I photographed her a couple years ago, maybe more.  I liked her as I do most of the people I work with, and we became casual friends.  Then she moved to Seattle.  I heard from her once or twice after that, but you know how that goes.  When she wrote me after all these years, she said she'd been thinking about me and wondered how I was.  Really, I wondered!  It is insane to me to think that anyone ever thinks of me when I am not in front of them.  I wrote her back and asked if I owed her money.  That is the only way, I thought, that she would remember me. 

But maybe she wrote me in error.  She did not respond to the email I sent.  That is more like it, more in the manner of how I picture things. 

I want to be remembered, of course, like everyone else.  That is why I try to make things.  But I want to be remembered for the totality of me, not a single version in time.  I assume that is why people have children, so there is someone to remember much about them, but I have not children.  My mother remembers me, but there is so much we hide from our parents that it is a partial version.  It is nice when they see us as sweet and lovely. 

Last night I woke in the night after going to bed early.  Two o'clock.  I was anxious and depressed and nearly suicidal.  My waking mind was a jumble of thoughts.  I've been depressed by the pain in my back that has turned me into a cripple.  My physicality has always been a big part of my identity.  I've stayed more athletic over the years than my peers and definitely younger.  Somehow, one begins to think it is a gift, a birthright, perhaps, that cannot be taken away.  When it is, of a sudden, it is quite a shock.  A colleague's mother was taken to hospice yesterday, and that has been on my mind, too.  The end.  There is no good way.  I've tried thinking of one, but the government has made it all but impossible. 

I got up and hobbled to the bathroom walking like an eighty year old.  Even though I tried not to look, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  I recognized that person as my father just before he died.  Jesus, I thought, the light doesn't help.  I wanted neither darkness nor light. 

I went back to bed, but my mind would not be appeased.  I began to think of all the things that need doing, of all the bills that need to be paid.  I thought about the car and the accident and what that all meant, and then I thought about last year's taxes that I still have to pay now having only weeks left to get that all together.  My old wooden house began to fall apart beneath me.  I thought of all the maintenance and repairs it takes (when I bought it from the old owner, he said old houses were for young people). 

Try as I might, I couldn't think of a good thing. 

Three o'clock.  Four. 

I woke up at eight feeling not at all rested even though I had gone to bed at nine-thirty the night before. 

This morning, I feel fine again.  At least no worse than ever.  What was it in the night that got me?  What horrible thing ran across my dreams? 

Maybe that girl will write back after all, but I have to think it was a mistake.  She was probably thinking of someone else.  I need to do something about my back, though.  But first, I need to look to finding the forms and documents that I need for my taxes.