I am alone.
I am alone in the kitchen, alone in the living room, alone in the bathroom (this is actually a good thing). For the first time in 25 years I am living alone and I am absolutely, completely overwhelmed by it. I looked at myself in the mirror today and wondered where those twenty-five years went. I scared myself so badly I almost couldn’t leave the bathroom to get dressed. I can see what the 25 years did to me, just not what I did to the 25 years, you know?
Now as if this were not enough, I have become accident-prone. On the way out of the university dorm parking lot, driving through tears, I almost hit a police car, which jerked me back into consciousness! But I’d no sooner turned onto the next street, and regained what I thought was my composure, than I almost sideswiped a city bus! I cursed myself out. “Geese Donna Marie, how do you not notice a moving object the size of a bus?” I began to hear an imaginary conversation with the insurance adjustor. “So, tell me Ms. Todd, were there extenuating circumstances on the day of your accident? Was it raining, snowing or foggy?” (I forgot to tell you I gave the adjuster the voice of my middle-school gym teacher, Mr. Norman.) “No sir, but I was crying because my son just left for college. Does that count?” Like my gym teacher, he did not have a sense of humor of which he was aware. “No, Ms. Todd, it does not count. I’m afraid this is going to raise your rates substantially unless you want to take advantage of our new, $25,000 deductible.”
But, in my defense, I haven’t been sleeping well. My first night alone, I did not sleep a wink. (Actually, I was so afraid of being alone that I didn’t sleep for about a week before he left, either.) I can’t tell you how much I appreciated our 60-pound rescue boxer jumping onto the bed at around midnight that first night. She was suffering from separation anxiety, too. So much so that she was still hovering around my legs the next morning…
Which is how I managed to 1)break my little toe and 2)tear a ligament in my foot (see attached photo) while simply trying to sit down in my armchair to drink coffee and read the $#@& newspaper. (I really shouldn’t say that about our local paper, because for a small-town newspaper, it’s quite fine. It has the weekly police report, school honor rolls and bridge scores, not necessarily in that order.) Anyway, I was embarrassed when I had to call my neighbor for help because I couldn’t put enough weight on my foot to get a second cup of coffee. (Hey, first things first.) It was kind of like the imaginary insurance adjustor conversation…except that this time it was real.
“How did you do that?!!” (Insert plausible explanation here.) “Does it hurt?” (Do not hit her, she’s a nice woman.) “Do you want to go to the doctor?” (No, I just wanted you to come and see what a dumb ass I am so you would tell all the neighbors and the newspaper would do a write-up.)
I’ll let you know how things are in a bit. For the next few days, I think it’s simply safer if I hide under the covers.
