"I seem to know nothing of what lurks beyond."

On the morning of the last day of baseball season, I'm already grieving. Our team didn't play that well this year, hampered by early season injuries and tenaciously poor management, the opening day promise extended less than a month before fairly certain disaster loomed. It took me almost a month to figure out the new roster, one missing a couple of last year's favorites, and the last six weeks have seen so many upstarts elevated from the Minors that I've been unable to tell who's who, who's home team and who's visitor. By the last game of the regular season, I struggle to care about who wins any contest. Winning and losing doesn't matter very much. How each player engages with the game matters more.

The Muse and I will attend the last game of the season, a rare match between our home teams, the team that stole our hearts during early exile days and the one that has failed to attract our interest since moving here. We're visitors in both venues now, though we still identify with our first love more than the later arrival. Our favorite pitcher's on the mound for the old home team today and The Muse will show up wearing red in a decidedly blue stadium. I'll wear my usual widow's drab, already grieving for the upcoming months—an entire half year— where no Mudville will produce even a distant cheer.

I handle transitions poorly. I think alien the whole idea of robustness. I suspect it's an entirely phony facility, one faked to make someone seem superior. I lose something, I grieve. I do not stoically stand my ground, concerned that my tears might somehow upset someone. I'm altogether too upset to carry any concern about how my disassembly might affect anyone else. I fall apart. I am a genuine mess for at least a few days prior and for a respectfully decent duration beyond. I get cranky and distant. I do not wish to be seen in public, a state I refer to as 'not fit for human consumption.' The Muse frets that I don't get out nearly enough, though I remind her that I was out just a week ago and even carried on a conversation with two (count 'em: TWO) other people during that excursion. Other than that, I've held myself sequestered, working on my mourning wail. I'm getting good at it.

I've not yet successfully completed my transition from last my cataract surgery, which occurred almost three months ago. My physician has been fiddling with blood pressure medication, an apparent necessity since my pressure spiked just prior to that surgery. My difficulty has been that I don't seem to tolerate the medication very well. My whole metabolism seems out of whack, to the point where the doctor decided to just unprescribe everything to see if the alarm might have been unwarranted. I can feel the poison leaching out of my system, but my system seems to be struggling to remember its same old used to be state. My head feels encased in fuzzy fabric and my forward momentum's gone. I'm idling on a side track waiting for the all clear signal. Nothing seems clear right now.

The morning thermometer's been dabbling in high thirties lows. The sun's heat has definitely started going, and might already be gone. My petunia planters hold brown-legged paupers now, still blithely blooming and most certainly doomed. My summer's work list has slopped over into autumn, though I've refused to climb up on the roof to finish that little bit of painting with fuzzy fabric inhibiting my brain. I'd just as soon never face a single change again, but they gang up on me, maybe understanding how poorly I handle the Trans-It-Shuns; mocking me. But not nearly as effectively as I manage to mock myself. A residue accumulates from inability's inaction. The to-do pile never, ever stops growing and seems destined to smother somebody eventually. Probably me. I have no excuses other than my nature. I lag each change, and not because I resist it. I know how everything goes under the old status quo. I seem to know nothing of what lurks beyond.

©2018 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FallingSideways, #PureSchmaltz