I had every intention of writing an entry yesterday - honestly, I did. But I got waylaid by - of all things - a nap.

Cody and I came back from Cici's, where I had spent the time eating tons of salad with ranch dressing and cheese bread and thinking about love and getting old and dying - inspired by an elderly couple I had observed making their way into Cici's.

She was walking haltingly across the parking lot, and he was clearly slowing his pace to accommodate her, one hand tucked lovingly under her arm. She hesitated as they approached the curb, and leaned on him as she stepped up with much difficulty. Once they were up on the sidewalk, she looked up at him and smiled, a bit wanly, but nevertheless with such love that I felt tears spring to my eyes.

I watched them the entire time I was there. He sat her down at a table and proceeded to fetch her food for her. Salad, pizza, iced tea. He put sweetener in the tea for her, stirred it, waited for her to taste it and approve of the quantity of Equal. He sprinkled parmesan on her pizza, red pepper on his. Gave her napkins and utensils, patted her hand, and they proceeded to eat, neither really saying much but clearly comfortable in a way that only years together can foster.

I tried not to stare too obviously, but it was such a touching thing that I could barely avoid it. At one point, he had a bit of pizza sauce dotted under his lip, and she, with a shaking hand, reached over and wiped it off with a napkin. It made me think that if their health situations were reversed, she would be as solicitous of him as he had been of her.

I wondered what would happen to one of them when they have lost the other. How do you deal with that, loving someone so dearly for so many years, taking care of them and having them take care of you, only to have it end - as it has to someday?

And I was afraid - that either a) I will have to experience that one day or b) I will never experience it.

I don't know which option is worse.

  

So I returned home with this couple on my mind, and I didn't feel really well, though I doubt it had to do with them (okay, maybe just a little) and I crawled into my bed and fell asleep.

When I woke up a couple of hours later, I felt awful. Just awful. I know of no other word to describe it. I thought I was getting over whatever little bug had besieged me of late, but no, there it was again, making me feel like shit.

I felt nauseous and my eyes were blurry - I kept flooding them with saline solution but it didn't help. I wanted to write about my sister, because yesterday was her 29th birthday, and I thought it would be nice to talk about my relationship with her. But I just couldn't bring myself to open up FrontPage and do it. Even now, it would require too much effort to compose in a manner that would do it justice.

So I'll just fumble around and talk about how bad I felt yesterday, and how I don't feel any better today, and how I suspect that I'm really at death's door, but can't quite put my finger on what it is that makes me think so.

I keep thinking of that Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz - "I'm melting, I'm melting!" That's how I feel - like I'm just disintegrating - physically, mentally, emotionally. Withering away.

There is so much on my mind these days - all of which is draining me somehow. My car, my money, my job, my house, my divorce, my kids, my animals, my (lack of a) love life, my health, my loneliness, my depression, my, my, my...everything. It's just this constant litany in my head which I cannot shut off.

Do I need a therapist? Religion? A twelve-step program? Medication? A psychic reading? Hospitalization? A winning lottery ticket? Fornication? A new battery in my vibrator?

Or will only death bring me peace?

That doesn't mean I'm suicidal. At least not "officially", I don't think. I'm really just tired - probably too tired to figure out the logistics of taking my own life anyway. Besides, no one in my family has the money to bury me. =)

I'm so out of it at the moment that I don't know how I'm going to manage to stand up long enough to take my ritual Sunday evening marathon shower. I don't want to face all that personal maintenance. I don't want to face work tomorrow, the drive in with my smoking car, the stupid monthly staff meeting that is such a boring joke. This week is going to suck, and it's barely even started.

  

Is everyone as depressed as I am after reading this entry? I suppose I should have prefaced it with a warning:

"There are no Pollyannas here. Just one boring middle-aged woman in the throes of her ugly little life."

Hey, if nothing else, maybe you'll feel better about your own life after reading about mine!! :p