Paralyzed

I just dropped T. Bone and Miss Bit off at school. I'm basking in the quiet of my erstwhile teeming house as I enjoy another cup of coffee. My day is as free as I choose for it to be. Life is so good. So why do I feel so bad? It's not the sudden throw back to winter. I hail from this neck of the woods so I'm familiar with the precarious dance that eventually looks, sounds and feels like spring. We need umpteen takes and live through many dress rehearsals before we finally get it right. Take one. No, I'm actually rather thankful for the grey, rainy, chilly day because it coincides with the air of gloominess that's invading my head. Mr. Sun couldn't even put a spring in my step today. I just have this overwhelming urge to curl up under an afghan and watch mindless reality t.v. or Enchanted over and over, and I'm not the least bit proud of it. (But seriously, I was very impressed with Kirstie Alley last night, and who knew Ralph could be so debonair. I was elated she wasn't the train wreck I was expecting.) It's better for me to tune out right now. I'm saturated with the suffering that comes to me on every channel as I prepare my organic, non-radiated food in the comfort of my heated house. Our state is in turmoil, our country is a mess and the world is rife with so much destruction and despair thanks to man and mother nature. I lament about what to do. And yet when I was presented with the opportunity to act last week, I did nothing. I was behind a U.S. Marine in the check-out line. I knew he was a veteran because the prosthetic leg he removed from his stump of a leg and placed in his cart bore the emblem. He couldn't pay for many of his groceries. Frivolous things like fresh fruits and vegetables if you must know. I thought about offering to pick up the rest of his tab as a small token of thanks for his service to our country, but then I worried about how it would make him feel. I fretted that my humble gesture would make him feel like less of a man. He already was less of a man. He only had one leg. I didn't even thank him, let alone pay for his groceries. I did nothing. I've been doing so much nothing that I now have a spiral notebook for my growing 'to do' lists, and many of the items are not optional. There are things I need to do...plenty of them...things that are time sensitive and necessary. Things I cannot and should not put off any longer. I consider it a huge success to get through the daily grind: work, school, homework, laundry, meals. The ordinary things that usually sustain me and bring me great joy are feeling like arduous, guilty tasks. Dailiness is an assault. Yet even as I write this from a darker than usual place, I know how blessed I am. I am shamefaced for feeling wistful without real reason. I am not proud to be wallowing in my own discontent. This is a time of great uncertainty. I know people who are playing the odds, scrambling to hedge their bets. And while it's true that we cannot know what is in the cards for us, it's also true that right now I find that terrifying instead of exciting.