Widows in Gilded Cages and Other Irrelevant Things

My Thanksgiving Day spent with near strangers turned out good. I had a pleasant conversation with the hostess who is a nice lady and I was grateful that I wasn’t one of the two people she asked to say a prayer before we all made our way through the food line. I sat next to my nephew during dinner---the group was made up of people in his wife’s family---and the food was tasty. After we ate I was invited to play a card game called B.S. (or 'bull shit' if you’re trying to Google it). Playing the game involves lying and deceit and I played with a large group ages 15 to 78. I found out I can’t get away with lying. I got caught nearly every time.

Then I came home and spent the entire night and Black Friday being sick and living on anti-diarrhea pills and Gatorade. I don’t know if it was something I ate or if I caught one of the bugs going around but my symptoms were more in line with food poisoning. I’ve hesitated calling anyone who was at the dinner to find out if I was the only one who go sick. It just doesn’t feel right to do that. On the good side, I didn’t gain any weight over thanksgiving and I didn’t bring home any of the offered leftovers just to throw out and make me feel guilty if the source of my food poisoning turned out to be something else.

Saturday afternoon I got all the ‘guy bling’ out of my rented showcase/booth at the antique mall….all six shelves worth of gas station and car related advertising giveaways, many of which are smaller than a quarter. You just never know when you walk into a place like that if you’re going to find that coveted Mercedes stick pin for your ascot, a brass token worth a free gallon of gas for your new 1939 Desoto coupe` or a 1914 gauge to check the air pressure on your balloon tires. Need an empty, embossed glass oil bottle to fill and sell in front of your hardware store to those crazy people who think cars will catch on and horses will all be put out to pasture one day? I still have one left. This is the kind of stuff I’ve been selling at the mall since Don passed away. I’ve done well. Between eBay for the big stuff and the mall for small stuff, I’ve downsized an entire three stall garage full of gas station and car related stuff and I’m now down to a few boxes of smalls that I was able to bring home in the trunk of my car. I might try a smaller venue closer to home next spring or do eBay again. I haven’t decided.

When I found out what my final check from the mall will be, I promptly came home and ordered the smart phone I’d been lusting after and for a shocking $59.00 savings because I had ordered on Black Friday weekend. Who knew? Then I arranged for the cable company to come out to upgrade me with Wi-Fi in the house and I got a bundle that is actually going to save me $100 a month plus I’ll be getting some bells and whistles I hadn’t counted on. They even waved the installation fee because it was Black Friday weekend. Apparently they want old people like me to step into the 21th century, a place I’m not sure I belong but, what the heck I’m not getting any younger. We did try digital TV with on-demand a few years back but Don couldn’t manage the complexities of the remote so we sent it back in favor of letting him have more independence in his viewing habits. With both the new phone and the cable company I’m getting a money back 30 day free trial, so we shall see how tech ready I am.

With all the things going on in my life I’m still finding the time to get bored. Or maybe it’s because there IS a lot of stuff going on in my life that I’m bored. I’m going through the motions of a full life but I haven’t fallen into the life pattern I want for myself. And who can I blame for that? I’d quote Miss. Piggy here for an answer, but I don’t know how to spell in French. Does it explain anything if I say I’m starting to feel like a bird in a gilded cage again? I know that place well. It’s the cage where you think ‘stuff’ is going to make you happy, make you forget about the unobtainable things in your life. It’s that cage you sit in, knowing you’ve got it much better than many other people and it makes you feel ashamed that what do have isn’t enough to make you truly happy. You still want that intrinsic hug or kind word from someone special in your life, that phone call that never comes to say ‘I love you.’ You want human warmth and companionship or maybe the life you left behind.

In my case, the special people I miss the most---especially around the holidays---are all deceased so I know in order to find what is missing in my life I have to keep on getting out in the world, keep on accepting invitations from near strangers. And I need to keep on asking myself to dig deeper into the Kingdom of Jean in order to make peace with what was, what is and what will be. But one nagging question keeps dogging me: who am I when I can’t find my refection in the eyes of another? No man is an island---or so they say, but I feel like one, a storm-torn island.  

Oh, boo-hoo! I hear a voice in my head saying. If you had any talent you could write yourself a country western song and it would resonate with half the population. I’m guessing that resonate-with-half-the-population idea is an important clue along the road I’m traveling? Sometimes my inner voice talks in riddles, sometimes she's full of bull and other times she's spot on. Which is it tonight? Okay, I'm going to quit typing now and go sit in my gilded cage until I can figure it out or sing like a tufted titmouse---which ever comes first.   ©