One hour, and fifteen extra minutes
 

What can you do for yourself in one hour, and fifteen extra minutes?

Read your local newspaper from cover-to-cover?
Tumble 'tween the legs of your scintillating lover?

In seventy-five minutes, I can reach the bowels of the Haunted Mansion if I leave my home at eight A.M. on a Sunday morning.

At the same time--if we speed-- I can conceivably cross the line into Santa Barbara county by 9:15.

If I wish to stay nearer my home (as often I do) I can spend a thorough an hour and a quarter at the farmer's market, gathering the makings for a creamy pureed watercress soup.

I could make the soup twice in that time with the aid of a sous-chef, once if I go it alone. I prefer the sous-chef, because there are many too many things to do in an hour and a quarter-- particularly because most of them only start getting good at the 1:15 mark.

So I can only imagine the frustration of a life lived in 75-minute units.

One whole hour, and fifteen extra minutes to sit in a chair draped with towels stuck with maxi-pads, there to collect the fluids that slowly and continually seep from wounds all along your body, splitting your paper-thin skin which now lifts off with the bandages as they're pulled away.

One whole hour, and fifteen extra minutes to stare at the same corner of the same room which has encased you for the slow progression of years and years-- and years past your best-by date.

One whole hour, and fifteen extra minutes to start a movie, only to have to pause it, or let it slip by, when the time-bomb ticking of a drug-weary bladder signals that it's time again for the slicing pain of a forty-five minute trip to the bathroom and back, hoping that your crumbling frame doesn't buckle on you.

One whole hour to think about everything that led to a half-life spent caring for the weeping wounds. And weeping, period. And fifteen extra minutes to imagine all the things you could be doing if you didn't have to live your life in hours divided like your mutated--prison--cells.

:snap: :snap:

:snap:

:snap: Wonderful!

I'll add to the snapping chorus :snap:

:snap: Oh yeah

More snaps from me. :snap: :snap: :snap: :snap:

...

Painful yet so wonderfully expressed.

Add me to the snapping chorus.
:snap::snap::snap:

I likes it.

:(

/hugs.

Gotta throw a :snap: your way. :)

Thanks for your responses, guys. I appreciate that you took the time to read and respond.

Though I feel like I didn't make it clear enough that this is a very autobiographical piece and I'm having a hard time dealing with the subject material. It seems that generally wasn't clear.

I'm sorry if my response came across as making light of the unhappy situation. I sometimes forget that not everyone's as ready for levity as quickly after difficult times as I tend to be.

No, it's not your unhappy situation so you're under no obligation to not make light. I don't recall if you made light of your father's suffering last year. But kudos if you did.

I am just definitely not ready to make light of my mother. I have typed and retyped this sentence about six times because there's no easy way to say that your mother's struggle is nearing completion.

:snap: - Thanks for putting that out there - beautifully reflective and thoughtful stuff. Hugs and encouraging thoughts coming your way from out East

No easy way, true, but there is a way to address it in a thoughtful and painfully beautiful way that acknowledges the battle your mother - and your entire family - has waged and the conflicting desires to both cling on and release. And this you have done most admirably. No one could ask for, nor even imagine, better.

My :snap: was for the bravery, thought and love you have for her to be able to write such an eloquent piece.

:snap: