Fading away

I am at home on vacation. It’s not a stay-cation, in the verbiage of the day, which implies hikes, skiing, eating out and good times, but an imposed vacation. I have been laid off and for the first time in nearly 10 years I’m unemployed and have nowhere to be everyday.

I am sick. My illness makes me stay in bed longer, to read on the couch for long periods with tea at my side, but my mind wanders. I get up and flit around my house. Fitfully, I tidy and clean. I put in laundry and think I should vacuum the dog hair-littered carpet.

Outside snow is falling, first in large clumps then sideways as the wind picks up. Then the sun comes out and the snow glistens beautifully. I feel guilty because I don’t have the strength to walk the dogs. But soon, the snow is back, blowing with gusto around the gray-palette exterior.

I think about writing, but feel depleted. All that comes to mind is how hard I worked and defended my place of employment. How it defined who I was in the community. How by not working I have lost my way. That all the things I covered and attended for a decade has vaporized. More correctly it is I who has vaporized and disappeared and someone else will fill my empty space as though I was never there.

Then I take my husband’s computer onto my lap and turn it on. I play with the icons. Oh look, he has something I’ve never seen: “Photobooth.” My image appears on the computer screen. But my God, I look like hell. Old, tired and sick. Sallow and colorless like the outdoors. I run into the bathroom and put makeup on, and do something to my hair. This all reminds me I must find someone to cut my hair, something new and clever, something to help me forge ahead in my new life.

I go back to the computer and try again. I still look like shit, but at least it’s not quite as miserable. Better but still, my neck has wrinkles, my eyes are puffy, my skin is … not so young. Then it hit me. Not only did I leave the place I’d spent the majority of my life this past turbulent and event filled decade, but my youth faded while I was there.

It is my youth for which I mourn, that and a steady paycheck, of course.