despair

I am home today with a minor case of "I feel so crappy I think I'll just sleep until my voice comes back and I stop hurting".

But as I ascended the stairs to get a drink, I was meandering in my head and I heard clearly the line:

"I am sick, old, fat, broke, unloved and reviled, but at least I've got.."

Hmmmm...let me think. Count your blessings.

Uh oh...taking too long. The Benadryl has slowed down the mental processes to sub-light speed, this is bad.

Funny this should happen on Ann's birthday, this crisis of ego. I have two marriages in the lost column, one of my children is ambivalent towards me, one of the others is only this side of openly hostile. I have a child and spousal support weight that would crush Donald Trump and the last six months have played hob with my waistline.

Hey, I still have my hair. Okay, good start. Even if it is mostly silver-white.

I have nine books published. Never thought I'd get that far, even if some of them I published myself (I am a control freak...the downside to that is, when something goes wrong I have no one to blame but myself).

I still have my wisdom teeth. Boy, we are reaching, aren't we?

I have options. Not all the ones I had when I was twenty-five and more alive, but in many ways, better options, options with some life wisdom earned of bad choices to play from. Okay, we're getting somewhere.

The illness will pass in a day or two. The weight is coming down. Can't stop aging without just dying. Cash flow is improved, even if 65% goes to my support duties I signed up for when I leapt into the arms of a panther that didn't stick around to catch me. Ouch. Let's move on.

Love happens. Yes, I may have a bad habit of becoming attracted to emotionally or legally unavailable women, but that's always been that way. I love it when you give up, finally, as I have done before, then a few days/weeks/months/years later they confess they wanted you to keep trying.

I am not an invalid. I have no fatal or chronic medical conditions. Although recently untested, I have every indication my lovemaking abilities are unimpaired by age. My car runs. I have a small, loyal cadre of friends and admirers, and I have the sense that I am doing the right thing, overall, doing right by those around me. And God likes me, even as S/he chuckles sometimes at my follies.

All right now. That's better.

Despair is a fleeting thing. And I love beating it into the ground.

Ha!