Reassurance

CG watched me from across the kitchen tonight; he's here to support my elder daughter, between residences, burdened with personal sadness, and Thistle, who got a huge thorn in her foot tonight (despite Grandma telling her not to run outside without shoes), and needed lots of love and comfort.  When he finally got around to me, he noticed my expression and asked how I was feeling.  I tell him I am sad; I have never blocked the person in question from my Facebook and am still friends with his family; pictures came through that showed he was on a nice trip; he had once promised to take me on such a trip, though I truly know he was never serious about that. I don't begrudge him anything, but I looked around at my living room littered with toys, the kitchen with more toys, ice packs on the table to try and soothe my granddaughter's foot, and me itching all over from the dust on the road passing Asha's cross...it's like fiberglass dust or something--and had a moment of feeling inferior. It's the old AA saying of "comparing your insides with their outsides." I feel like the person in question got all the great things and I am left with...well, with my life, which I know he looked down on.  And I struggle with the writing of this book, wondering if I have the skill to pull this off, sitting around in the gray, ugly County Building, sifting through papers and trying to reconstruct Asha Veil out of them, and staring from time to time at McClish's creepy mugshot where he looks like the love child of Norman Bates and Ted Bundy.

"Joanie, any idiot can slap a check down, book a hotel, get in a plane, and go somewhere,. Hell, a chimp could do that if they had the skill and a bank account.   Do you want that to be the measure of your life, or do you want to write this book? Life will deal with all of us in time, good and bad."  And of course, the person in question can never, ever say that he drew another person out of the darkness as I did for Thistle.

Later:  But they WERE really lovely pictures, and I am glad he got to go.  And I especially liked the one someone pointed me to, the one of the rosebush with pretty peach roses on it.  Very nice.  Thank you, dear.

I agreed with CG.  I have to keep pushing forward, hard as it is...keep moving...