 Well people, the sun has risen over a new year, and it’s casting an exceptionally bright beam on my little corner of the world.
I have to say that 2014 was really, really good to me. So good in the work department, in fact, that I haven’t had the time or inclination to blog much in recent months. What a propitious problem to have. Personally, life is damn dandy, too. First, my 19-year-old son moved out on his own in October. I’ve enjoyed watching him acclimate to his newfound independence, make some valuable mistakes and develop crucial life skills. I’m so proud of his tenacity and work ethic.
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 Brace yourselves. I’m still reeling from my recent head-on collision with the Affordable Care Act, and I’m fired up about the government taking my money. (OK, technically the money goes to a certain health insurer downtown, but I'm trying to make an impassioned argument, so poetic license is in order here.)
Now, I rarely show my political colors in public. My political bent is no one’s business, for one thing. And for another, I am not particularly invested in any one issue. Most of the time, I am simply happy to live in the home of the free, and I resolutely accept the bad stuff that inevitably comes with all the good in these here United States. I registered as a Democrat at age 18 because my mother told me that Kentucky rarely turned out any decent Republican candidates, so it was important to be able to vote in the Democratic primaries and at least help choose the best jackass out of that bunch. I don’t know if I agree with her logic, but I’ve left my official allegiance with that camp all these years. If I had to pick a party based solely on my beliefs, I would align with the Libertarians. When it comes to supporting business and industry, I am a conservative capitalist. On social issues, I fall more on the liberal side of the fence.  My 19-year-old son moved out this weekend. Goodbye full fridge and cable TV, hello Ramen and rabbit ears.
I knew it was coming (I first wrote about his plans here), but I could not have adequately prepared myself to walk across the hall from my bedroom and survey the barren space he vacated for the first time. (Said sentimental surveying took place after I dusted and vacuumed, of course.) I won’t lie, I was more than a bit verklempt. I’m grateful the move was Ethan’s decision and not a result of an ultimatum by a fed-up mother. A year ago, it nearly came to that, when I grew frustrated with his lack of direction (and lack of employment). No, we parted on the very best of terms, and I was glad to help make his transition as comfortable as possible. After several months of looking, he decided to share a house with two roommates downtown near the University of Louisville. It ain’t the Highlands, but it’ll do for a bachelor pad. The crib, as his generation calls it, is populated with torn couches, mismatched dishes and the former tenants’ residual dirt. The few window coverings throughout the house are sheets, and neither bathroom has a shower curtain yet. Ethan is so happy he can’t stand it.  I just got back from seven, blissful days in Florida. It’s going to take me a minute to re-acclimate to autumn temperatures and, well, the real world. I predict it will be at least Thursday before I stop wandering out onto my porch in a tank top, expecting an ocean view instead of the dying hostas and caladium in my front yard.
Truth be told, I hope I’m still surprised that my Highlands bungalow isn’t, in fact, oceanfront property all the way into December. I want this beach high to last until spring because I hate, hate, HATE the cold. I feel like Louisville got gypped out of summer, what with all the cool snaps and dang rain, so this trip sort of helped me to reclaim the final fragments of a season that ended too soon in my hometown. And speaking of trips and vacations, the two are not mutually exclusive in my book. A vacation out of town is a time to reflect, rejuvenate, overeat without remorse, soak up your surroundings and basically sit on your ass. A trip, on the other hand, is an excursion with an agenda, guided tours, scheduled stops and a frenetic pace. You go on a trip to Rome; you vacation at the beach.  I have an ongoing, perverse fascination with rage and violence. The motivation, the dynamics, the deeds. I’ve always been interested in what drives some people toward extreme aggression, but my curiosity has been intensified recently by the media — both real-life events in the news and fiction.
I am fortunate to never have been the victim of physical violence. Not really. Once, a long-term boyfriend 20 years ago grabbed me by the collarbone during a heated argument and left a bruise, but if I am being honest, he was just protecting himself from a rabid girlfriend. We were so broken by that point, neither of us could see straight. Our fights about infidelity and betrayal (on both sides) had escalated to the point of absurdity. Our fear of letting go had not yet overridden the pain of staying in the relationship. Our love had morphed into loathing. That day, in a gas station parking lot, I was belligerent and completely off the chain. I don’t remember what I said, but I’ll never forget the moment I went too far.  Last week was the first one in the two years since I started my little ol’ website that I didn’t write a blog post.
It had to happen, and here’s why. It was a hectic Monday morning. I had been sick for the prior 10 days, and I was way behind on more than a few projects. I was scrambling to get organized, return some calls and tie up some loose ends that had gotten badly frayed the week before. I was a hot mess. My brain was still hazy, so coming up with a viable blog topic became a futile pursuit. The only things I could think of to say involved a litany of complaints of how shitty I felt. And lemme tell you what, feeding the self-pity monster is never good for my mental state. By about 2 p.m. on Monday afternoon, after hours of worrying over not having a single word on the page, a radical thought occurred to me: “What if — just what IF — you skip a week, Amy?” And so I did. |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
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