Q: Where you been, Anne?

A:  I have been busy trying to pull myself out of my funk.

Actual footage of this process:

Please enjoy this link to a far better explanation of what my life feels like right now, as written by Catherine Newman:  Just. Don’t.

Q:  Am I relieved or disturbed to read her article and realize that perhaps I am not the only one, that perhaps this is a thing? Perhaps not even a normal middle-aged thing, but a reaction to current political climate, that changes us forever?

A:  Yes.

I bought these shoes like an aberrant psychological reaction:

Mew shoes say it all, don’t they? I must suppress all my angry feelings, remember to be friendly and soft.  I’m a 42 year old woman who doesn’t want to be taken seriously.

Truth (And follow-up to M0dcloth purchase question):  They’re well made for the price.  Also, a little tight.

Perhaps because the shoes were a little tight, (but only came in full sizes and so I knew a size up would be floppily too large) they did not make me super happy.

I told myself to get busy figuring out something I could buy or go see or do to inspire me.  You can feel like a pretty big asshole, pretty quick, when you lose sleep thinking, “If you could do anything, what would make you happy?”  And nothing turns you on.

I ended up at Mary Karr’s website, looking for a video in which she might talk about writing, so I could be inspired to blog.  Anyway, I found this:

Which, at the point I realized they are brain-storming an idea for titty bars for old people*, while on a childhood abuse tour I also realized how badly I miss the magic language of families of origin.  Close family talk is a crazy kind of thinking that verges on mental illness.  Only my mother and sisters talk the version of insanity that makes total sense to me, that sparks on everything and makes me see the world differently.

That night, while trolling through the endless but fruitless items on my Defunkify Possibilities List

(Leave the kids and go to Paris for a week! Was not even doing it, although I’ve never been to Europe and so theoretically, this should be a bucket list item.  Ugh, what about the terrorism?  I’d have to learn French.  God, I’d have to convert my phone, and every time I try to research that, I somehow end up on twitter trying to give myself a rage stroke)

(FWIW, every attempt to enter the internet inevitably finds me on twitter, trying to give myself a rage stroke.  A few days ago, I was pissed that nothing horrifying had come out of the White House, and I found myself indignant:  I can’t believe I wasted the whole day waiting for the adrenaline rush shitstorm, and it didn’t even bother to arrive! JFK.)

Anyway, that night, I thought, I want my old Mom back, the person who was whole and healthy and loved me.  And this is pretty embarrassing, but I told myself all the things my old Mom used to say to me, usually with my head in her lap.

Like I was doing a good job, and my dad had told her he was proud of me, and I was the best mother she’d ever met, and she knew I had everything I needed to get through life.

When I started to imagine all the things she used to say, I thought, “This is a real gift, that I can keep the part of her that loved me, and replay it whenever I need it.”  But by the end, I was crying so much I decided I couldn’t imagine that again anytime soon.

So… Shoes!  Enjoy.

*When Lecia said, “I may still do that!”  I did whatever the equivalent of snarting** is, only braying laughing and tears.

**Snart, defined: