Yuk
Everything just seems so ugly today. It started out with the first real cold, gray morning. Nobody wanted to get out of bed, but that’s normal in this household. After dropping the boy off at school, I headed north on I-5 to go an doctor’s appointment in Federal Way, about 45 minutes away. I only have to see the Rheumatologist once every other month, so it makes no sense to switch to someone here, since I’ve been seeing her so long. As part of the appointment, I had to have labs done, including blood and urine. I was fine until I started thinking about all the things that could be wrong with me. I’ll spend the next several days fearing that the doctor will discover something awful. Those little tingles of doubt and worry started ebbing at me. The day started taking on a bleak, ugly direction of its own. Fears of unspeakable illnesses have filled my mind.
Since it was nearby, I drove around the area where we lived from 1998 until 2005, and I had forgotten how ugly and unfriendly the whole place really is. It’s gotten more and more congested and there’s so may houses and businesses getting crammed in there. I saw lots of graffiti tags everywhere and everything looks worn. Instead of being there and feeling grateful that it was no longer my life, I began to feel freaked out. It was the weirdest thing. Like the years I had to live there because we couldn’t afford to go anywhere else were somehow lost years or a waste. Like that was a part of my life I somehow can’t get back. Hard times in my life I try not to think about. I just hate to admit that is how I felt about a period of time that included the first four years of my child’s life.
The neighborhood around my old house looked even worse. Tagging, weeds, neglect. All the houses appeared to be rentals and not well cared for. The roads were paved, but with oil and rock instead of asphalt. Several favorite businesses had gone under. There was lots of new building, but stores I did shop at were boarded up too. I had planned on doing some shopping, but I just couldn’t wait to get out of there. I stopped and had lunch, which was unremarkable. I read the paper, and my eyes drifted to the obituaries, which was almost entirely populated by people younger than me. The front page had a huge article about how college freshman were born in 1989 and had no clue about many, if any world happenings before the year 2000. 1989 was the year I graduated from college.
Oh, and did I mention I applied for a job with the State, and when I filled out the “diversity” survey that’s part of it, one of the questions was if I was 40 years or age or older? Like that was something unique or noteworthy? Like perhaps they want special incentive to hire a geezer?
It’s not just the mist and gray and rain. A veil of ugliness is over everything today. Death, disease, crime. I hate feeling like this. I understand now how it can be so easy to have a midlife crisis. Shees.