TheBanyanTree: Bits and Pieces

[Maria Gibson]

It's been a month now since I moved out abandoning the family I've been 
a part of all my life.  The actual abandonment is a bit in limbo as my 
husband developed medical issues just days after I began moving out so 
I've been ferrying him about to doctors and most recently a trip to the 
hospital for surgery.  I don't think my new life has really begun in 
full swing yet but all the signs and symptoms indicate that it is soon 
to become a stark reality.

One of the  notable changes taking place is my new/old fondness for 
smoking.  I have found that cigarettes and coffee are the breakfast of 
champions or at least the breakfast of people who have no earthly idea 
where life is headed.  It does help to calm stressed nerves just as I 
knew before I quit some fifteen years ago.  Man, was that another 
lifetime.  I'm sure I'll quit again but for now it is serving a very 
good purpose.  Like other things serving a good purpose, however, it 
doesn't come without risk of injury, this being more physical than 
mental and emotional.  Still, injury is injury.

I have bad days and days without bad.  I don't really allow myself good 
days as I am constantly wrapped up in the selfishness with which I have 
let my actions be guided.  Sometimes I think I'm afraid to be happy 
because I can't decide if I really am happy or if it is a momentary up 
side of down and I don't want to be caught with my pants down around my 
ankles.  I tend to trip as I try to run for my life in  those 
circumstances, so perhaps it is best to just shit and forget about 
getting off the pot.  Stinky but safe.

The emotional fragility with which I face each day reminds me of the 
cheap red, rubber balls I played with as a child.  The tiny cracks and 
tears weren't evident until I gave the ball a good, hard squeeze and 
then it was all too clear how wrecked the ball really was.  I'm not sure 
what held it together; the foam on the inside or the weak paint on the 
outside.  Under no stress the ball seemed fine and good for whacking 
against the brick wall of the theater next door.  Oh, but be careful, 
children, lest the damn thing fall apart all of a sudden and with a 
mighty explosion of usedtobeaball.  Could get ugly.

These are the days of my life and I make no promise to no person about 
what is coming, not even for a few days from now.  I'm doing good to 
track what is happening at the moment and refuse to be tied down to more 
than that.  There doesn't seem to be a book, Abandonment for Dummies, so 
I am left to feel around in the dark and do the best I can do.  I'm not 
sure that it is the best for anyone but seems to be what needs to be 
done for me for now.  It's all I have to work with.

Maria