Down for the Count Up, 7

AT SEVEN, SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

At Seven:
It’s hard not to be bitter when something is taken away from you.
It’s even harder not to be bitter when someone is taken away from you.

Even though you know things were going to get worse; even when you know that all there was to look forward to was suffering. It doesn’t help at all when the truth is they’re in a better place. The reality does nothing but make me wonder if I would have been strong enough to carry on for however long the carrying on might have taken, and why I wasn’t given the chance to find out.

I’m so wrapped up it in; cocooned in the sacred wool of a spiritual blanket keeping my soul sufficiently warm, and mercilessly rashing my skin. It’s impossible to divide the blessing from the curse.
It’s hard not to be bitter when the most common roll of life’s dice is seven, and I keep coming up on the less common low end. The biblical significance of seven (in creation, in time, in color, in sound, in seas, in wonders; completeness) isn’t lost on me, but brings no comfort, either.

On the surface it seems like everyone is rolling lucky, though odds are it isn’t true. It’s best to pray through the distortion, and answer questions of true meaning. Would I want to be anyone else? The answer is more than just a reasonable “No, of course not.” Because “No,” in this case, really means to some extent I am satisfied. I’m self-accepting of permanent quirks, still annoyed with bad habits. I can’t do everything I want to do, but I can do some things and still somewhat responsibly make ends meet.

I still need to worry about the future, not obsessively, but practically, with GOD given logic, and an un-jaundiced eye to the world. The sevens are out there. I believe, so I keep looking.

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Common. Quirks.

“Oh, geez,” he protested. “I was just waitin’ for the end of the song.”

He smiled, and waited for me to smile back. I smiled back.

It was one of the crazy quirks we discovered we had in common, on our first date.

–

We’d pulled into our second restaurant location for dessert and what was supposed to be a good-night, night-cap.

Jeff pulled the handle to get out of the car, then glanced over at me, questioningly.

I hadn’t moved. My hand hovered over the dial. Poised, because, the song on the radio wasn’t at an appropriate end-spot. For my tastes, anyway.

Sheepishly, I explained my compulsion to listen all the way until the end of a tune. Or, at least, wait for a well-timed verse break or chorus completion or the top (or bottom) of an instrumental break, or when the singer took a big breath or something.

Jeff’s concerned expression had quickly morphed into a high-eyebrowed, silly grin. “Me, too!” he endearingly exclaimed.

My expression morphed into a silly grin. I flipped the switch as a comfortable place to end the music arrived, and we exited in sync.

We spent a good 20 minutes or so talking about the best place to stop listening, if you absolutely had to stop listening. If you didn’t have to, we agreed it was best to wait until the song ended. We also both expressed a dislike of DJ’s who liked to talk over carefully crafted ending instrumentals, and confessed to not being able to put a book down until the next chapter; or until the last line of a page had a completed sentence that ended in a period.

–

Jeff sat down at the kitchen table, while I dispersed groceries. I set a pot of water to boil. Spaghetti was always our back-up when Jeff didn’t feel like cooking. Or, when he took an unplanned afternoon nap that lasted a few hours.

“So,” I asked, after loading the milk Jeff said he’d drink into the fridge. “What was the song?”

“I don’t remember. It was kinda a surprise when I woke up.” Jeff told me.

“Hmm,” I wondered aloud. I asked him what his most recent blood-sugar was. “Oh, that’s ok!” he reported. “It’s only 220!” 220 was a low. Norm was 250-280, fasting.

“Why is it 220?” I asked. “What did you eat today?”

He told me he’d made fried eggs and fried bologna for breakfast, and hadn’t been hungry since.

I continued my inquiry. “Any of your meds change? Have you missed any? Run out of anything?”

He thought about that, while tapping two fingers on the table. “Nope. Got ‘em all picked up last week. Nothin’s changed in a while,” he concluded. “I’m just tired.” He chuckled. “Yep. Guess if I keep fallin’ asleep, I must be tired.”

“Well, maybe you should mention that to the doctor, at your next appointment. Do you have another appointment?”

“Yeah. In a couple weeks.”

“Maybe, you should call before then.” I suggested.

“Yeah.” Jeff agreed. “Maybe, I should call.”

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