a lovely shade of jaded....
Hello my darlings,
Let me warn you, it's been a bad week and I'm feeling particularly snarky today. I've been doing a lot of soul searching and this introspection made me realize that I am becoming a bit jaded in my outlook on work, people and life in general. HA! Who are we kidding, me "becoming a bit jaded?" Right! I've clearly BEEN jaded for going on 40 years now. FWIW, I'm not trying to sound younger than I am I just don't think I was this snarky or jaded before the age of 5. I have many, fond memories of my mother that all seem to start with her uttering the phrase "that smart-mouth of yours...." so, realistically if I was this much of an asshole before I turned 5 I'm fairly certain my obituary would had stated something about "a very tragic accident at such a young age..." Kind of not kidding, she wasn't a sweet, nice little old lady and she had SEVEN other kids, but I digress, or maybe this is not really a digression? Keep reading, you'll understand...
I won't bore you with the details about my current nonsense, but suffice it to say that my fabulous new job is not what I'd hoped it would be, so I am once again embarking on a job search. In addition to the job stress I've been having a lot of tooth pain and after enduring a nightmare-inducing, six-hour dental appointment (root canal, new crown and a filling) in mid-December I still can't bite comfortably on the left side of my mouth and now I suspect I need a root canal on the right side, oh and most importantly, a new dentist. Finally, there's that whole matter of death and grief and life changes and figuring out who I am again and what my new normal can and should entail and..... waaaaaahhhhhhhhh! Some days (weeks) just SUCK!
I've lamented to a number of you about the well-intended, but incredibly stupid things people say to a grieving person. (For those of you who haven't yet endured that diatribe, don't worry, there will be a whole chapter in the not even remotely helpful self-help book I'm going to write.) Recently, I was whining to a friend about how depressing it is after a frustrating day to come home to an empty house. Her kind, precious response, one that I've heard countless times in the past 13 months, was to inform me that "he's an angel up in heaven looking down on me now." STOP THE DAMN BUS! What? Is that actually supposed to make me feel better? Am I supposed to take comfort that I'm alive having a shitty day, generally making a mess of my life and in my selfish little walnut-sized brain what I want is to someone to vent to at home, but the dude that I once would have vented too is dead, so now he's sitting on a fluffy cloud, sipping a glass of bourbon (come on it's Ray there is definitely bourbon and he probably has a cigar too) watching my shitshow life? Really, THAT is supposed to make be feel better? Well meaning, but NOT actually helpful....
This got me wondering if the whole Christian "heaven" thing really just a voyeur's paradise? While I do not practice any religion today, I did go to Sunday school (Otis Presbyterian Church, Otis, CO and the building IS still standing in case you think that claim is a little too unbelievable) for a lot of years and I remember that to get to heaven you have to be good, and kind and nice and say your prayers and go to church and endure those horrific church potluck dinners and resist the temptation to shove sticks in your ears when that old hag in the row behind you starts wailing a very off-key Amazing Grace-ish hymn into the back of your head and..... (SIDEBAR: I wasn't a great Sunday school student and I didn't pay as much attention or behave as well I a possibly should have. I still remember sweet little ancient Ms. Vera saying frequently "God is watching you, Ronda!" Seriously, that happened, a lot! As you can all attest based on my behavior today, I don't think that scare tactic ever really achieved the intended consequence. Teehee) My point is, I was informed during those Sunday school years that heaven was this wonderful, beautiful place where everything was tranquil and peaceful. Now as an adult, I'm being told that when someone dies they go to heaven where they just sit around and watch their loved ones continue to f*up their earthly lives. Kind of seems like a raw deal. You do all this good shit to earn your place inside the pearly gates and when you get there you just sit around watch your loved ones continue to be asshats. Yay, sign me up for that.....
I understand that this well-intended sentiment is supposed to provide comfort that someone is watching over me, but I suck as a human and it kind of creeps me out. For starters, my life is BORING, spending all of eternity watching the nothingness that I amble around doing certainly doesn't sound like paradise to me. Furthermore, while it's not a thing currently, there might be a point in time when I want to have "relations" with another actual person in the room. OK, so I realize I probably need to lose 20 (fine 50) pounds and have a personality transplant before that is a real possibility, but it might happen. Alright, I get, that's probably not likely, let me step away for a minute to add batteries to my shopping list, OK, I'm back pardon the interruption. The really weird thing is that my parents are dead too, so does that mean it's not just Ray watching my pathetic existence, but also my parents? If that's the case, I guess I should apologize for joking that my mom wasn't very nice and that she probably would have killed me as a child earlier in this post. Oh crap, and I should probably apologize for.... nevermind we're not getting into details of any other lewd and lascivious behavior that I never intended my mom or my dad or my husband or my aunts or my sister or my uncles or my....oh hell I got a lot of dead people, this just got terrifying.
Please don't think I am saying that spending all of eternity in the Sunday school version hell would be better. I just have to question how comforting it really is supposed to be knowing that someone you loved is watching your every move. Holy crap, can dead people read my thoughts too? YIKES! I guess I don't need to worry about how to negotiate a "premium package" at the pearly gates to watch something more exciting....
Until next time...
XOXO