Incrustation Infinity

Sometimes sadness can heal on its own. Scabs form and cover the open wounds of sorrow and the throbbing pain is replaced with something itchy and peeling.  Sometimes the sadness underneath the scab is left alone long enough that it just heals completely and the next thing you know the scab has flicked away revealing smooth and unmarked emotions underneath.

And then there are times when the scab catches on something, a bit of clothing or a bit of reality, and the wound is opened again. Often the new wound will hurt more because you were under the impression that healing was happening. You were thinking that maybe time was mending the fuck out of the wound and that everything was just going to eventually go back to the way things were before the sadness.

Oh but it doesn’t. My scab came off too soon and it left me sobbing and gasping for breath at the shock of it all. I mean, hell, I was doing better: taking showers, doing the laundry, making plans. But we don’t always get to plan when we are faced with scab peelers. Scab peelers could show up in the form of the pottery barn for kids catalogue or the accidental click too many within your photo bin and suddenly you are looking at that smug and now defunct positive test.

Usually they are in the form of people. People that are just bopping along and living their lives and seriously not meaning to fuck your shit up. But oh these random people can hurt like nothing else. They pull those scabs off so fast and so severely that you might feel dizzy before the tears come. Or maybe the tears just come and then you see that the scab is on the floor by your big toe.

This afternoon I took GM to her Friday hair appointment. We were experimenting with coming at a later time to see if it made our morning routine smoother (didn’t). GM was in a sort of out of it mood and I was so tired that I didn’t even manage to switch out flip flops for real shoes. We were early for the appointment- something that is never good. With time to fill GM gets anxious. Suddenly she won’t know where she is or why she is there. Suddenly she gets suspicious or agitated. I do the best that I can to occupy her mind by flipping through magazines or pointing out cars in the parking lot.

As we waited in the lobby a woman waddled in and sat next to GM. Yes. Waddled. You know where I am going with this, don’t you. GM was now transfixed on this woman and openly gawked at her. Trying to cancel out any unidentifiable energy that GM was exuding I gathered my strength and smiled, actually grinned, at the pregnant stranger. She, being what I am sure is a perfectly lovely woman, smiled back.

Seeing the smile GM pounced on an opportunity to chat. Except she was speaking so softly that the woman needed to scoot over to the chair next to me. Our thighs were touching. Our thighs. My unpregnant thighs were touching her pregnant thighs. And I know that GM was partly enchanted by this woman’s obvious and “make no mistake about it” pregnancy bump. I know that GM must have felt this sort of kinship or understanding with her.

And then my scab fell off.

In crashed the emotions that I had hoped were gone. In came the waves of sadness and paranoia and loss and inadequacies. I was no longer a granddaughter taking care of her GM- I was an unpregnant girl sitting next to a pregnant woman who was able to captivate and charm my GM precisely because she was in a condition that I was not.

I literally tingled and felt my body go cold with envy.

Soon the woman was whisked back to a station and I tried my best get it together. GM turned to me and remarked with all of her perfect timing, “Boy! She sure is going to have a baby.” I nodded, because it was true, and then focused on biting the inside of my cheek to keep from crying.

When it was GM’s turn to get her hair styled I looked up in dread as the woman from the lobby was, indeed, just one station over. Her purse next to my purse. Her conversation in the same air as mine.

Things I wish I had not heard: 1) It was such a surprise! We weren’t even trying! 2) We certainly think she will be a redhead. 3) I think we will name her after my Great Grandmother.

You can’t unhear things. I have tried.

So now I am doing all that I can to get my wound to heal again. I wonder if I can convince Mother to bring home a vat of wine. Old motto: Time heals all wounds. I kick that motto to the curb. To hell with it. New motto: wine makes a stronger scab to cover the wound.