Cocktail Cruise

08/03/09

Cocktail Cruise

The other day, I took my dog, Belle, in the car with me (she likes to ride shotgun) and we rode around town stopping at shop after shop doing tacky little errands, the ones that I keep putting off. Honey, my other dog, was being groomed, and I could not make myself go home. It was 6PM, one of the hardest times of my day, so I just kept driving. It rained some and Belle's face got wet from hanging out of the window. I made myself a traveling cocktail before I left home and even stopped at the house once for a refill. So, there I was, cruising around town having drinks with my dog and breaking several laws, I am sure. I wanted to keep driving, could see Belle and me traveling north toward the north Georgia mountains, a cigarette between my fingers, radio blasting seventies songs, anything to stop thinking about my empty house. No Clint. But then I wondered where I would go, where I really wanted to go. God knows there are enough holes in my life, so I couldn't imagine abandoning Honey. And when I gave it serious thought, what I really wanted was to go home and find Clint where he should be, not in the pottery jar sitting on the hearth. There he sits, a pile of ashes all packaged up in a hand-slung pot. He's like the Tar Baby. No matter what I say, he just sits there, mute. But he's there. My therapist thinks it's wonderful that I am so angry, says it will help me survive this hell. I think she is full of crap. I'll never be the same, don't want to be the same, not without Clint. I have to learn how to be another person, but how do I do that? How do I switch off the hurt? Jesus. I've tried all the tricks I can think of. I have knitted until my vision is blurred and my hands ache, then pulled out the project for no reason other than I want to, that it gives me something to do, something destructive to do. I have played new age music and done yoga and tried to meditate and pray. Pray? For what? I want to hit somebody. I want to throw dishes and wield a baseball bat at my car windshield or into my bathroom mirror. I want to jackhammer the bathtub where Clint took his whirlpool every day and fell asleep, nearly always dropping his newspaper into the water. I want to stomp the peace lilies, the "Here, have a plant since your husband is dead," lilies. What an amazing tradition. I hate those things, don't know why I planted them in the first place. Did I really think it would make me feel better to see them every day and remember that the only reason I have them is that Clint is DEAD? I smoke way too much, even smoke those obscenely long fags that remind me of an all day sucker for adults stupid enough to smoke. I didn't smoke so much before - just a few a week. Now I can't get enough poison into my body.