Hello from the Other Side…

Hello from the other side of quarantine.  Yep, Serena and I had “the Covid”.  Two weeks of marinating in the living room with my babies.  It wasn’t as bad as I imagined.  The mind looooves to make terrible scenarios… but thankfully real life is never as horrific.  Even with cancer and an emotionally retarded husband.  Haha.  But seriously, there’s Life… and then there’s one’s interpretation of Life… based of course on the complex ecosystem of Past Experiences, fears, hopes, threads of Destiny…

The time passed without differentiation.  It was just a big, gooey blob of sprawling presence.  It was me laying on the super comfy memory foam mattress in the living room, snuggling with a hot water bottle and an ice pack.  It was Serena watching hours of youtube videos of this tween who plays out intricate scenarios with her Frozen dollies (you know, Elsa and Anna).  It was Forest passionately putting together puzzle after puzzle.  It was me listening to copious amounts of Louise Hay videos on youtube to keep focused on healing and stay sane.  By the end, I really had a taste for some Alone Ness.  

I feel like a convict, fresh out of prison.  I nearly forgot how to live.  I nearly forgot how to express myself in deliberate streams of words.  The babysitter came and I just sat watching her do a puzzle with Forest… until it occurred to me that I could touch my fingers to the keys and see what happened.  I have felt so estranged from my writer self.  My identities have been simmering down to a very miniscule reduction.  I’m not sure whether to be frightened by this, or relieved.

Oh, you want to know how covid was for us?  Riiight.  It was a cake walk.  Serena went first.  She was extremely tired, had a headache, an eye ache, a belly ache… if she had a fever it was too minimal to detect with my hand.  This lasted for two days.  I got a minor cough and felt exhausted for a couple days.  I was glad to know that it was just covid and I wasn’t dying of cancer.  And now, I am eligible for a “super green pass”… which means that I can go to the post office again!  Or take a train.  Nazi Germany anyone?

So that’s the surface of my life.  Now let’s turn over some rotten logs and big boulders and see what more we can discover about this Humble Existence otherwise known as Athena Grace.  

A few blogs ago, I remember casting a seductive promise that I would express my deep longing for Family… But this is a classic case of snooze and lose… because the moment hath passethed.  My longing for family has capsized in the small boat that carries this deranged family from moment to moment.

Giordano moved back into the house.  There was no discussion.  Suddenly there was just a perpetually troubled man with beer breath lurking on the couch.  (I was gonna say “my couch”, but he has been crystal clear that it’s HIS couch.  He has expressed ample disdain that the cats sleep on it and mess up the pillows and leave their “pil” (hair) around.  It tickled me that he was pretending to be all important about how it cost two thousand euros… when in reality he got it for free on one of his paid dump runs.  No, it’s NOT dumpy.  And I see his point.  But come ON.  Relax dude.)  

I guess you can get a sense of my current attitude.  I just don’t appreciate that he came back under the pretense that he would create a separate room downstairs for himself… yet when rubber met road, he really had no such intention.  I never meant to live with him again.  I never meant to be obligated to clean up after him like a mommy.  And now that he gets the goods without having to be accountable, he never takes care of Forest.  This pisses me off.  

In fact, we have a date for legal separation on March 17th, which just happens to be the anniversary of my Mama’s passing.  And once this occurs, the boy in man’s clothing will be legally accountable for taking care of his son, financially and otherwise.  And the BEST part?  He will be obliged to sign Forest’s passport so that we can travel to California!!!  The fickle drawbridge is finally lowering across the crocodile laden moat.  It’s very badass.  

What was NOT very badass was my FEAR.  I was too chicken to talk about these topics with G.  Really, we only have a real talk like once a year.  All other attempts are aborted by criticism, violence and dissociation, all of which I am abstaining from.  So I simply waited for my lawyer to contact his lawyer… and for his lawyer to contact him.  Does that sound lame?  It’s NOT a flattering reflection for me to observe.   But given that he has not gone out of his way to make me feel safe… I guess it’s legit.  Anyway, it was a heavy load to carry- this knowing of a court date- while he was concurrently living as though we were still a couple.  

Haven’t I just created a dandy little COMPLEX situation?!  Sometimes I get so swayed by his odd dedication to our sad little family.  Well Forest isn’t sad.  But everyone else is.  And I have this feeling that if I don’t find my way to a better life, my soul will ditch this stupid world.  Yes, at the end of the day, I think it’s pretty dumb here.  But I’m still willing to LOVE IT TO SMITHEREENS.  I’m still willing to raise my kids and evolve as a contribution to OUR evolution.  I’m willing to BE here and to be of SERVICE.  To execute this intention, I need to free myself.  

I believe I manifested intense illness because I said NO to myself TOO MANY TIMES.  I have wanted to leave since I got here.  Hence buying plane tickets TWICE and then flushing them down the figurative toilet.  G is a barnacle.  Once attached, he’s hard to get rid of!  And it doesn’t make it easier having a very fabulous child together.  Either I am a total idiot, or I am on an insurmountable Path of Mastery.  

I prefer to entertain the later.  Yeah, I’m done ridiculing and condemning myself.  What’s the bloody point?  Being cruel to one’s self is not a one way ticket to heaven, which is my chosen direction.  I spent so much time begrudging myself for the choices I made.  So much so that I began to eat myself alive.  Now is the time for love.  Radical, Big-Gun Love.

But let it be written that I found the ovaries to tell him myself about our date for legal separation.  Which of course was anticlimactic…. I still don’t know if he’s accepted the reality of this… or if he cares.  We just don’t talk.  It’s a loveless state of affairs.  To live with a man who never asks me what’s on my mind, or how I’m feeling… or shares his inner world with me.  Let it be written that by now I AM STARVING.  Starving for love and intimacy and deep and delightful sex.  And this starvation is actually compelling me to keep moving forward.  Because if I DON’T, I will starve to death.  

I’m ready to set foot on American Soil.  I’m ready to eat dill pickles and hug redwoods and immerse in the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean.  I’m ready to splash and frolic in the hallowed culture from whence I sprung.  I’m ready to hug the heck out of my estranged friends and family.  

And let it be known that the whole time I was writing these words, G has been laying next to me on said memory foam mattress… snoring away and smelling like beer.  It’s four minutes after noon.  But let it be known too that the man is suffering and I’m very sorry for this.  

Postcards from a zooming, living spaceship we fondly know as Earth….