I’m headed into my fourth week of unemployment, buoyed by my in-laws but still floundering a bit. My in-laws, bless them, decided that worrying about keeping the house and paying the bills was a waste of energy, and have given us a desperately needed net. But I’m accustomed to having a certain amount of external structure to my days, and that’s gone. I’m really not very good at supplying it for myself. This week is especially weird, as Joseph is on Spring Break. That means I don’t even have the discipline of getting him out the door to school in the morning.
Looked at objectively, I’ve gotten a lot done these past few weeks, but it doesn’t really feel like it. I’ve gotten a clear look at the circumstances we’re in, and it isn’t pretty. We’ve had enough disasters, without recovery time in between, that we can’t catch ourselves anymore. I really, really hate that. My father-in-law is right; the blame game is a waste of energy. But I can’t forget what’s past, or what part I had in it.
And then there are my folks, who can’t let the subject drop no matter how many times I explain the logic. I can clear the record with my late unlamented employer, and probably with the unemployment folks, but I’ve no way to clear public perception generally. I’ve had people suggest a defamation suit, but all that would do is prolong the notoriety. Keeping my name in the paper simply reminds people what I was accused of to begin with, and whatever the ideal of our system, innocence is not what John Q. Public assumes. I know my parents love me, and are indignant on my behalf, but darn it, this is a decision I have to make and I’m tired of being asked if I’m absolutely sure this is the correct course. Who, me, grumpy? Oh, a bit. I’m not sure who I feel more sorry for – my husband or my son. Probably the latter. He doesn’t understand why Mommy can’t be induced to play tag or trains with him. Today he instructed me very solemnly to practice smiling.
I think I’ll work on that tomorrow.
Give it time. The rumination thing — it won’t kill you; it just feels like it.
As for your husband and your son — this is me feeling NO PITY FOR THEM WHATEVER. They are lucky as hell to have you, lady, and don’t you dare forget it.
Count me among the pity-free. It’s not as if they’ve never given you grief, y’know. It is impossible for human beings to live together and NOT annoy each other occasionally.
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a [woman Alisa Cohen!]
(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling for the last line edit)
Love,
Kerry
What is it about your friends and bowlderizing Kipling in your honor, viz.
“Yeast is yeast
The rest is mess
And lets add papain to meat…”?
What is it about your friends and bowlderizing Kipling in your honor, viz.
“Yeast is yeast
The rest is mess
And lets add papain to meat…”?