Sharing My Thoughts on Lonely
Sharin’ My Thoughts on Lonely
Ok..I still spelled melancholia wrong…..ha…. there is no melon in melancholy….lol….who says….if I want to put a melon in there, so be it!!! So there. Have to make some of your own rules as you go along, and if the doctors can’t have some sense of humor then they shouldn’t be working with people who have cancer….just an aftervent. Definition….aftervent…..venting after the fact, afterwards, when your brain can mull it over.
Now, would it not be great if we could all think of the right comment, the right retort, the right Socratic question, at the right moment when we needed to respond, to be assertive, to question, to say WTF is your problem that you can say such and such in such a way? I always think of the most succinct, beautiful, eloquent or not, quips and retorts anywhere from one minute to hours later.
My spontaneous wit needs a while to conjure up the right words, the nerve, the backbone, the cojones (must spell check that one)….it is not as spontaneous as I wish it were. What the hell am I talking about??? No, I am not on drugs or alcohol, although my brain may be mildly fried from forty years ago…(and I did kind of like Kurt Vonnegut Jr.). When my wife was alive, I could claim chemo brain by association. I don’t know what my excuse is now.
Ok. I intended to tell you that I saw a neighbor go by my house….a mom and her 5 year old son. This was the day Sunny Bunny and I took our stroll. Well, so the melancholy was still hanging around. I stood at my storm door, and something made me put on my jacket, go outside and walk two houses over and say hello to the couple and their son. I never really met them before, they moved in about a year ago, so I introduced myself and several sentences into conversation said, my wife recently died from pancreatic cancer. How is that for an icebreaker?
Maybe I needed to explain my friendly (needy?) behavior. Maybe I just needed to talk about it with someone new. I did not analyze it that much until now…lol. But, we stood there, outside, talking for 15 minutes and they invited me in to sit and chat for a little bit (the fact that I was starting to shiver may have had something to do with the invite, but I think he was shivering too).
I think it was exactly what my internal doctor ordered. Of course, it didn’t hurt that they had some family members that had died from various cancers and we had that to talk about, but really the first thing that struck a common chord was that they did not vote for Trump. Somehow, I mentioned something about the news, and then he mentioned he listens to NPR (national public radio), which I do as well, and we were off with flying colors.
Okay, I am not going political with this post. Just sharing some things we had in common. It was a delightful visit, and I made sure not to overstay my welcome and to scoot after about 45 minutes or an hour. They said they would like to have me over for dinner some time, seems he is some kind of cook/chef. How is that for a lucky day, eh? Me and my prepared meals, relish a good home cooked meal once in a while.
Whether I have dinner there or not, there was something almost magical about the interaction. They were warm and open, and the conversation was comfortable. Sometimes I am just surprising myself, and sometimes when I stick myself out there and am open and vulnerable, good things happen. I put these things in my “feel good” bank. And then I have them to withdraw from the account when that melon starts a callin’ (refer to previous post…lol). (Okay, melon call’n’ ya = melancholia). And, no honeydew. Cantaloupe, yes.
Neal Klein
Life After Emilee, on the loss of my wife to pancreatic cancer. I’m not accepting comments right now but please feel free to get in touch via my Contact page.