The Blues

Ever since returning from vacation in West Virginia, I’ve been struggling with a big time case of the blues.

I usually feel a little down after having visited home for a few days.

But this time is different.

Everything sort of caught up with me this time.

My son is headed to Iraq at the end of September. He came to Northern Virginia for 10 days of leave before leaving. He’s not spent one night at home. I’ve only spent a couple of hours with him and that was over a quick meal.

He tells me that he will be doing military police duty while in Iraq. The whole thing makes me feel quite uneasy. He’s impulsive. He doesn’t think things through. He’ll have a gun.

He travels tomorrow to see his mother, Lovey. He is spending a night there, but the way he talks, he doesn’t really want to have to do this.

Trying to get him to speak with his surviving grandparents is like pulling teeth.

He’ll be gone for seven months and supposedly he will be coming home after that. He’s opting out of staying in the military. He doesn’t like being told what to do or getting in trouble for screwing up!

Lovey phoned me today.

We’ve now been divorced for almost four months and she’s trying to give me orders…and she’s no longer my wife.

Every order she gave, I responded by saying “no!”

It was an eye opening experience for her I think.

She’s complaining about how bad she feels. Her back is “killing her”. Even valium and Alleve aren’t helping it.

In my head, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Lovey is actually a hypochondriac. She’s as healthy as a horse, but to hear her tell it, the death watch has begun.

Before she moved out of my house over a year ago, she announced that when she moved out, God would be healing her when she left me. You see, I was the reason for all her maladies. God knows how sick she was…..and when you couple all that with the rawness she said she had inside, I just don’t know how she suffered as long as she did with her queer husband.

But, she’s still just as sick as she’s ever been. – rushing from one doctor to another. Consuming this prescriptions….consuming that prescriptions.

Oh my!

So, really, as much as she would like to blame all of her aches and pains on me, I’m not really the reason for them.

Just like I wasn’t the reason for the messy house….or the piles of junk everywhere. I’m not the reason for her psychological and the spiritual maladies she has been plagued by for so long.

Mercy!