Out of Nowhere

I realize that some of the things we turn into coincidences are trite. I know this because when things go really poorly I run a hot bath, pour in some sea salts and smelly oils, and start talking to the shower head lingering up above me.

This ritual started around the time my grandfather died and it was a way for me to “talk” to him. (Oh shut up, like you’re so normal) I would spend a good hour each night jumping into my tub and washing all the horrors of the day away. I would look up and just starting talking to him like he was in the room. For some reason it doesn’t seem creepy to me that I’m naked in the bathtub communicating with the dead. When I write that I can see why every other person on this planet would think that.

I think of it like he can’t see me, but he can hear me. If he can see me I have reasoned that he has already asked and received the gift of blindness in this situation. There must me some type of mystical gift giving for the dead.

Either way I always seem to get some type of advise out of the situation. I assume it’s from him, but who knows. Maybe it’s just the heat going to my head, but I think he often finds ways to communicate with me.

At one of the lowest points of last year, I went outside on my porch for a smoke and to ponder what all had happen in the last year. I was feeling horrible and like I had lost everything. I looked over and noticed the bulbs I had taken from my grandfather’s house after his funeral were growing. They were tall and beautifully green in the midst of our winter. It gave me the courage to get my ass off the porch and to stop behaving like a child.

Since then there have been several of these incidents.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately since I decided to buy another house. Will I be able to make the mortgage? Will I be able to stick to a budget? What if I end up in a financial nightmare? What if I make the wrong decision? By the time Friday rolled around I was in need of a lobotomy, but instead decided to put on my St. Christopher chain. For some reason it reminds me of my grandfather, who was neither Catholic nor a religious man. Then again I don’t know why I have manifested him in the showerhead either, so I guess it makes perfect sense.

I felt like I needed him to be with me that day. I went into work that morning feeling blue and was confronted with an argument right away. Then the phone rang and I struggled with telling Rojo that it’s over between the two of us. I went into my boss’s office a couple of hours later and received the worst excuse ever about why I haven’t received a raise or a promotion. (If you know anyone else who is not receiving their dues at work because the company ran out of office space, please let me know. I’m searching for a support group)

Of course by this time I’m thinking it can’t get any worse, and I drive home to make a gift for a friend. Once I got home I realized I lacked the energy for any such activity and called the old roomie for dinner. I was driving to the restaurant with the top of the cabrio-gay down feeling a little bit more chipper until my phone rang. It was the X calling to tell me that he’s getting married in a couple of weeks.

Wow. My X husband gets divorced from me in December, and then married to the Replacement in October. Lighting speed to you Frat Man. I had no idea your sperm was in such high demand. I was stunned and said my formal congratulatory remarks and hung up the phone in order to whimper like a beaten dog.

The minute I walked into the door of Mexican food joint, two waiters immediately came up and asked me if I needed a drink. Nice. You know you must look like hell, but do you need the confirmation of a bus boy to do this for you?

I sat down and didn’t hear a word that my friends said throughout the evening. I muscled through dinner and left as soon as the check was paid. Back in the cabrio-gay I couldn’t bare to turn on the radio for fear that Etta James would be playing. I know it’s not likely, but then again…

In the safety of my apartment I fell on my couch praying that no one would call. I looked around and saw all the little things that use to be in our house. When I got up I felt the chain around my neck and my little St. Christopher hanging safely on my chest. And I knew, it’s just one day, it’s just one thing, it goes on even after its gone.