It's not that I haven't been crying lately

I just haven't had anything new to cry about. The same old thoughts occur to me, and when they catch me, when I let them, I get hooked in. I don't try to avoid them, it's my only connection to my recently departed past. When I say "recently departed past," instead of "Sharon," I think I am being more accurate. I mourned Sharon years ago. Then I grew bitter. Then she died. Then I grew remorseful and sentimental, and I whitewashed away all the bad times, all the hurtful, hateful things that we both said to one another.

I dealt with an angry person yesterday. I tell you, it was like looking at myself. All unreasonableness and overreaction, just ready to nuke it all, and who cares. That was me dealing with Sharon. I managed my emotions so poorly, I let her have the full brunt of my frustration which, if it felt anything like dealing with this angry person, must have hurt her tremendously. Or possibly made her develop a very thick, negative layer to protect her from feeling hurt. Because negatives repel, I would get back what I gave, and my negativity came back to me in spades.

Anyway, that's not what made me write today. My thought of the day, not profound or anything, was just a reaction to a picture of a little girl wearing a sunflower print outfit. Big, yellow sunflowers. Innocent little kid, representing summer. The caption was something about seasons getting ready to change.

It reminded me of last autumn. We were evacuated to an assisted living facility in Yuba City during the fire. Remembering that alone will make me cry. How we survived the fire and lived though that whole time together only for her to be gone now. But at the facility were old people, trying to maintain their dignity and individuality, somewhat, in an institutional setting. So on their doors were name placards with their pictures next to them. We weren't there long enough for that. We were just passing through. We had a home to get back to, a life to resume.

But one of the guests had adorned their door with a theme of autumn leaves and the orange and brown colors of the season. "Fall is just around the corner" it said. I don't know why this simple statement evokes pathos in me. Not because fall is the time of transition, of dying into winter. Of summer's passing. What makes me sad is the person, I don't know anything about them, probably old. Probably didn't even decorate it themselves. But it makes me think this person's identity was somehow wrapped up in this door decoration, making its proclamation to the hallway visitors. I cry for the intent, the impulse that made someone put that attempt at festivity on the door.

I mourn for all the things that claim to make people happy, that they identify with and say, "I like this." I don't have a handle on why this happens, but I call it promises undelivered. "Fall is just around the corner" but maybe that isn't going to apply to a person who is going to die in the next week. Will they be there to enjoy the fall? 

Hannelore died shortly after visiting us at that facility. Fall wasn't a happy time for her, she was suffering with ovarian cancer and not enjoying much of anything. The veneer of happiness is paper thin. A pink jumpsuit, a flowered outfit, autumn leaves on the doors. They say, "Here I am. This is who I am. This is what I like." And soon none of it will be there anymore. Jumpsuit folded and donated to charity, decorations taken down, flowered outfit outgrown.

I'm struggling to pinpoint the exact mechanism, the precise description of the process of my mental fuckery. I guess I'll give up for the time being.