Week Seven - A Day in The Life - Raining Lightly 

This waiting is really unbearable. I feel like I am falling and will soon hit the ground. I dread the impact, as I know it will be painful. The worst thing is that there is absolutely nothing I can do to soften or prevent it, or change direction, or stop falling. I have no control over any of this.

I go on with my life, as nothing out of the ordinary was happening, but I continue to get that feeling that it is not happening to me, that I am only watching what is going on from the outside. But how can I be fully real if I am not part of reality? And can Paul be fully real if his mind is elsewhere? And can our relationship be real, if we leave out what is too uncomfortable to share? It is painful to admit that the truly mysterious people in our lives are often those who are the closest to us. I thought I knew Paul so well, but I am not quite sure now, as his way of handling this situation is totally unlike what I would have thought he’d do.

Yesterday his mother came to the house to bring some vegetables from her garden. She is an organic gardener and feels very strongly that, unless we eat her vegetables, we don’t really know what kind of poison we are putting in our bodies. She always lectures us on the importance of leading a healthy life, like she does. She even gives lectures on this subject at the local library these days. This organic business seems to have become her new religion. She tends to get involved in things and, for as long as her interest lasts, she does not do anything else but talking, studying thinking about that. Until, that is, she finds something else she likes better and this becomes her new baby.  She and Paul are not very close, never were really. Paul never forgave her for leaving his dad when he was eight and remarrying shortly after to a horrible man who could not care less about him and his sisters. It felt to him like she did not care how they felt; she never asked them before she made any decision. She just matter-of-factly informed them after the fact. My mother-in-law always did what she wanted, regardless of how her decisions impacted the people around her. Paul’s dad never recovered from this.

Anyway, I was saying the other day she comes to the house with a basket full of tomatoes, zucchini and string beans. Paul was at the computer. He hardly even stopped what he was doing to greet her. He hardly talked to her. I had to entertain her, because I felt he was so rude. Not that I like her very much either, because she always talks about herself and hardly asks a question about the person she is with. But I don’t like being rude. After all, she came to our house and brought us vegetables from her garden, so I just could not ignore her like Paul did. But the lack of connection between the two of them gave me the chills. I had always thought this relationship between Paul and his mother was something unique, due to their history and hurts, but now I could see how Paul can become cold, disconnected and not quite there. I could also see how he can maintain this icy treatment over long periods of time. It gave me a different perspective, and it scared me!