a day without

 

I had a day without the Internet today. Some contractors were here replacing the cabling to all the apartments, and since I’m on the top floor, they began on this floor. I was woken up by a LOT of cable being flung off the roof above me and some of it landing on my balcony. I think I have PTSD from the Japanese earthquake in 95 I lived through – the strange noises the cable made, and the guys above me, woke me up in a sweat.

Not my favorite way to wake up.

I had to go to the Employment office today, and while I was there something started shaking the floor. The woman I was talking to noticed me tense up – she even said so and explained it was the vending machine behind "that" wall making the noise. A white face gave me away, and the immediate "fight or flight" impulse came over me as I looked for the nearest way out.

It is fortunate that I do not remember anything about crashing my car in 98, given how badly I wrecked it. I was drunk and PISSED off (for my Australian readers, I was pissed and mad as hell) and I might have gotten some PTSD from that, if I hadn’t been knocked into a coma by the crash. Thankfully, I don’t have any memories of it at all and it doesn’t affect driving for me now.

That would be a HUGE change in my life; I’ve always loved driving.

Last night’s entry shows, I think, some of the PTSD or whatever that my parent’s deaths gave me (they died about 6 months apart, so 1977 was a HORRIBLE year for me) and may help explain why I do not get "too" close to anyone any more. It hurts, duh, to lose people, and if you don’t get too close to them, it hurts less when or if they go away.

Having been screwed over by "family" limits my trust in anyone, although, statistically, one is more likely to get screwed by a family member than by a stranger. I keep my distance, metaphorically. Which had an effect on the marriage, probably, and has certainly affected my friendships, the few that I have.

My former wife removed all doubts in 1998, when she came to be with me at my (nearly) lowest point.  (the lowest point being the coma – and my biker friend came to the hospital then and although I don’t remember that either, I know it happened).  We had been divorced by that time for three years.  The wreck was in April and she made all preparations to come to my side right away, if needed.  She did come during her summer break (she is a teacher) and stayed with me for 7 weeks.  She said, and I know it’s true, that she was ready to come and unplug me, if things worked out that way, because she knew I wouldn’t want to be that guy who never wakes up.

I had had my doubts – that’s one reason I got divorced, but that summer they all vanished and I would say I got closer to her than to anyone else, because she was THERE for me when I really needed her, and is still here for me, and has been keeping me from going under and losing my car.  I did work it out with the credit union to make only interest payments on the car – $90 instead of the full $362 I would owe otherwise – until February, by which time I hope the Disability thing will have worked out, and or I would be working again.  She emailed me last night that she had sent another travelers check to me on her way to work.  She gained so many points that summer that I dunno how she’d lose them now.

That’s why she didn’t come this summer; she said she knew I’d need money, maybe, and stayed home and didn’t spend the money on plane tickets because I might need it.

What the fuck I’d do without her is something I don’t want to think about.  She and her family have treated me well and do not hate me or even dislike me.  My own family has been notable in their absence and I laugh bitterly about it.  I dunno what my family’s problem is, but my ex wife and her family have supported me when I needed it and have been there for me, always.

In fact, I have known my former wife more than twice as long as I knew my parents.  January will be, or would have been, whatever, our 29th anniversary, and this year is the 31st year since we met in 1981.  I can’t imagine, and don’t want to, what life would have been like without her in it.

A Chinese astrologer read our fortunes in Japan in 85, and said that we have known each other, and have been part of each others lives for all of time, that we have been wives and husbands and brothers and sisters in other lives, that we are part of each others lives.  Always have been and always will be.

I laughed then – I was 23 – but I don’t laugh about it anymore, because I’ve come to see that it is true.  She has been there when I needed her most.

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Anyway, a day without the Net.  I leave this computer on for days at a time and restart it from "sleep" and from "hibernate", but today, since I was gone and people were in and out of my apartment, I turned it off.  A day without the computer too, something rare in my present life.

 

 

 

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