Being Sad, and Silly

On most days I am a cheerful person. I rarely give in to dramatics or overwrought despondency, I don't over-analyse my feelings and on most days, I take things as they come - curveball or thunderbolt or glacier-slow.

However, today, I just feel like surrendering to the melancholia. It must be that dreadfully depressing book that I'm reading : Steppenwolf. Also, my husband is away in Cameron Highlands in his search for yet more land, this time for a plantation of dragonfruit. Early this morning, between darkness and light, I sat beside him at the bottom of the stairs, and watched him lace his Red Wings, while a big black Ford sat humming, idling outside the gates.

"You know, you still look like that girl I fell in love with in Melbourne", he said, as gently as he brushed hair away from my cheeks. One small kiss, benign smile. My husband got up, slung a bag across his shoulders and climbed into the truck.

As I watched it turn away, then hidden from my view by rows of houses not yet awake, a horrible thought formed within : what if he is not ever coming back? What if he got into an accident, and that one remark -- that I am still the girl he married -- was the last thing he said to me? What if all I would have of him from henceforth are the pictures I have in my head, and the pictures I have in boxes?

It makes me incredibly sad to think of this one certainty : of my husband's passing. There are times, like when intercourse becomes a connection of both flesh and spirit, I mourn for his death even when he is very much alive. My marriage is blessed with such felicity, that I often fear for it - because you have that much more to lose. Because I feel it is truly a gift from the Heavens, the same kind of Destiny could wrench it away. I worry that my life, now, is merely the good times in a tear-jerker film, the brief period of happiness before the script calls for everything to go awry. When you ponder upon these things, you realise how futile your plans really are, if they don't depend upon God's Great Purpose.

I stayed under the covers until mid-morning, by which time my daughters had jumped on me and no bad thought can be had when you're assaulted with questions and requests from two shrieking imps. A good cry in bed usually clears my head, after which I would come to my senses and see that this is all just silly and that he'll be back in the evening - because he always does, no matter what the premonition I have upon him leaving.

It's nice to be depressed once in a while, and I carried it to work - I played Puccini without having pity for my friends, until Kamarul remarked that O Mio Babbino Caro was the song to which Hannibal Lecter sliced open the head of his victim, before feasting on his brain.






mokciknab muttered at 4:26 pm ~ ~