Jacuzzi of Grief
Hello Medium. It’s time.
Time for yet another imaginary writer’s late(ish) life, Quixotic attempt to rediscover a writing voice. I did have one once. Sadly, it’s been absent for many years; decades more accurate.
Over many, many months of overthinking where to start, I envisioned a careful, measured attempt to ease into deliberate and cogent written expression. That, like everything else, has been canceled due to the pandemic.
Instead, please find a paroxysmal response to soaking in my own claustrophobic Jacuzzi of grief.
Just how old am I? One of my earliest childhood memories is watching my mother as she cried, as she watched President Kennedy’s funeral procession on TV. She wore a white, short-sleeve shirt; a tissue tucked into its cuffed sleeve. I wasn’t much past being a toddler, but it’s also the first time I remember witnessing grief. I’m, “I can remember President Kennedy’s funeral, years old.”
I lurk-followed an old friend here and this platform kindled thoughts about writing once again. And another friend showed up. I only wrote for myself in the past but remember loving when I wrestled thoughts and emotions out of me and onto paper. Back in the day, it really was paper and pen. Then, in college days it was a greyish, Olivetti Praxis 48 electric typewriter with a Wrightian cantilevered keyboard and green keys. Already years old when I had it, it emitted the most irritating squeal when it was on. I did love the results.
Then, adult life.
Blink: Mortgage
Blink: Marriage
Blink: Children
Writing expressively simply got harder and precipitously fell away, dissolving into pocket notes of scribbled poems and thoughts shoved unceremoniously into shirt pockets, forgotten, and forever lost, washed into white, powdery wads of useless paper.
Blink: The WWW arrives and I see my chance to write again. That ends with several forgotten, single entry blogs, tucked into the shirt pockets of the information age.
I became a wordless writer.
Blink: Divorce
Blink: New Family
Words are wriggling up once again, what to do? Now I’m an “older” father to a nuclear-powered 5-year-old and joyful 8-month-old. I’m self-employed and the pandemic has absolutely screwed everything up on every level.
I am also a textbook case of Attention Deficit Disorder, replete with a lifetime of horribly incorrect, impulsive decisions, missed appointments, and unfinished projects. Let's add burned bridges to the mix.
Looking up the definition of “Quixotic” led me down a rabbit hole that found me 45 minutes later watching “Man of La Mancha” videos on YouTube. It’s a constant battle to seal the fissures that leak attention from my consciousness, pulling me toward and into the ultimate, boundless rabbit hole of the Internet. All-day, every day.
Blink: I find my problem.
This is my personal journey toward defining, comprehending, and processing the legacy of trauma and grief that created and shaped who I am.
I was born almost a year to the day of my brother’s death.
I’m a replacement child.
I’m that door that opened when another one had closed.
With hopes of adding something of substance to this community, I submit my humble, overworked first words. I’m not sure where this will take me, but you’re all invited.
