Ever feel like it's a true miracle to even get out of bed in the morning? I'm not trying to romanticize it, don't get me wrong. I wake up most mornings with an expletive on my lips and very, very big black circles under my eyes.
And no, the supposed magic eye creme from Lancome doesn't even touch that nightmare. It just makes the black circles softer I guess. I take comfort in the fact that despite the clear markings of fatigue (although, aren't writers supposed to have those) I do have relatively few wrinkles...for now.
Yes, it is a miracle to find the audacity to emerge from the cocoon. It is painful, especially at this time of year when the cold has settled in your bones and the economy continues to spiral in a dangerous nose dive, taking all of us with it.
And yet...I have been to several countries and several regions, and the misery I see here is infused with a hopelessness that I have yet to see anywhere. Perhaps I haven't been to the right places, or to the ravaged places, I'm not sure.
I do know this, or, at least, I've figured it out: Where money is king you will find his queen, misery, close behind.
The pursuit of the dollar has almost ruined me, many times. I can feel it most powerfully around this time of year, a time when the little that I have is competing with the seeming abundance that the rest of the country is rolling in. I begin to want more, more stuff mostly, for my kids. More electronics, more game cartridges, a bigger T.V., a life that requires more batteries than imagination.
But more, I should know by now, has never really made me into more. It hasn't perfected my musical skills, it hasn't made my smile bigger, it hasn't found god for me, it hasn't helped me laugh my ass off at dinner parties with miscreant friends, it definitely hasn't made me a better lover or mother...
So, no more for me, thanks. Gotta keep reminding myself of the things that matter most, or at least a lot, to me; a good cup of coffee, raising kids with wit and common sense, a good proper lay, other people's struggles and the palette called earth.
This is a darkly humorous bit about life as a rural mother and freelance writer in Western Massachusetts. Little Appalachia, if you will. The title, I feel, clearly reflects how life is coming at me like an overloaded freight train, and my own ridiculous response to it. Me VERSUS all; teenage children, people who want me to work for free, conservative government, food karma, weird menfolk. You'll either laugh, shrug your shoulders, or call DSS immediately. Happy reading.
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