Days and days it's been. So long in fact that I forget what I have shared. The past couple of weeks have been fine. By that I mean they have been the same, no better no worse just a whole lot of the same. Now under certain conditions that would be really god. One spectacular sunny day after another for example. But, while the weather has been ok and the sun has returned, there is still that sameness. No time left over after work and family to sit down and put words to...screen. My thoughts wax and wane from past to future alighting briefly in the present to enjoy my Darlings cuddle or Baby Boys toddlerishness but never remaining, spinning more often out of control than I like.

Subdued is how the shrink described it and I guess it had her somewhat perplexed, or so she said. Didn't know what to do with me (welcome to the club). I haven't been all emotionally and such lately, the exact opposite actually. I feel...(I sit here trying to find the word to describe this and I just can't). There is a numbness that hums under the surface. I have my family and the feelings for them sit quite raw sometimes. Love that rips at my heart with the mere thought of losing. Disappointment in myself and my inability (still) to fulfill my responsibilities. These emotions crackle like electricity in the air before a summer storm. But for life beyond my four walls I feel nothing. Everyday I head off to play at being smiling and nice and underneath, yeah, nada.

I claim no time to visit and yet I read diaries everyday, several of them, and I surf away, play games and otherwise piddle away the minutes finding at the end of the day that I can't say what I did so much as what I didn't do.

Didn't do the dishes.

Didn't fold the clothes.

Didn't run.

Didn't read anything but internet crap (and blogs, those are worthwhile I think).

Speaking of reading. I am reading Shunryu Suzuki's book (well not his book per say but a collection of his talks, Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen) in the bathroom. I'm not sure if it is disrespectful or not but it seems like the only time that I have that shouldn't be spent doing something else. Mind you I am by definition doing something else and I'm pretty sure that in true spirit of zen I should be "doing what I am doing" and not something else while I am doing it but there I am, making use of the time. Maybe TMI but I have a point. I never read anymore. I work my way through the Cosmo magazine I subscribe to (used to subscribe to Scientific America so many years ago) and bit by bit this or that book on something but the last actual book I read was last summer and here is the sad part, the book was a Christmas present from the year before. It took me almost 6 months to start it, a week to read it and then, nothing. I just keep asking myself how (and why) have I come to this and how do I get back.

What if this is as good as it gets? You may recognize this as a quote from Nicholson in the movie similarly titled. I hear his voice in my head when I say this but truly, what if? I suppose with my Darling and Baby Boy to hold me up I can live with this. They are so much more than I could dream of asking for, but what do I provide them?

Subdued. Numb. I want more. For them, for me.

They are out there now, Baby Boy and My Darling mowing our huge lawn, I am here, in the dark, downstairs by the light of the snake tank I type away. Subdued by the dark, eschewing the sun to write.

Why that's another problem. I always give up something for something else. To write I give up the sun (yes I know it's a laptop and by definition portable but my brain isn't and I can't seem to concentrate in the sunshine, I want to drift away instead.)

Ack.

Now I have to go make dinner. Nothing solved, just a whole lot of nothing on the page.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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