Stuck in a Moment

(I don't know if any of my readers are offended by what my mother would refer to as bad language, but if you are, be warned. I have used some in this post.)

Well, I have had a very fun day of pretending not to be in a terrible mood. Now I have decided to embrace reality with enthusiasm. I did not get dressed until 1pm. I spent the entire dreary, cloud covered morning in my bathrobe watching season one of Army Wives again and eating the rest of the bag of potato chips that I purchased on my way home from work last night.

Shall I speak of Army Wives the show? Naw. I don't want to go there. But I am partial to the light. They seem to always shoot the scenes drenched in summer light, early afternoon, late afternoon, mid day, everything is brilliant. That had me hooked, that and the colors. I want now to go out and purchase some crocheted pillows, some bright yellow plastic pitchers, yards and yards of gratuitous fabric and halter tops. I'll pretend to be someone entirely different.

I hate a few days. I hate six days, to be exact. Right now, at this moment in time, this moment that will never come again, I hate the last few days of May.

I hate the few days until Keith calls. I hate the continuous cloud cover that will preside over the next six days.

It was rainy all weekend. I hate the rain. I hate having to dress warm in May. I want a nice roaring fire, a cup of tea and Keith. In the opposite order. I am stuck in a moment.

I've been starved lately. I've longed for the most ridiculous of foods, like brie cheese on crusty break or Doritios or cookie dough ice cream. Cinnamon buns with dripping icing or French toast. Pastrami on rye with melted cheese. Stuffed crust pepperoni pizza with so much grease it goes running off the top of the pizza in a light golden stream and turns the paper plates translucent.

I prowl the kitchen, I tear open cupboard doors even though I know what I will find. Nothing. I eat tuna fish salad, egg salad, chili, fruit, yogurt and granola. Everything in small quantities. I have lost a lot of weight. I walk religiously. It might be my religion. I walk every single day and for those forty minutes, I am that mindlessly happy that is the product of a body that has sweated enough.

I am sick and tired of having a perfectly good man and not being able to roll around in our large, comfortable bed with him. I mean, for God's sake. I have a man. There is a male of the species out there, in good health and with all the right equipment and he belongs to me and I can't have him. And it sucks ass.

Though out deployment I could not complain like this. I could not embrace the suck because the suck was far to vast to wrap my arms around and if I tried, it would pull me down into some bottomless pit from which I would not have escaped.

In fact, back then I imagined that reaching this point would be nothing but sheer bliss. I imagined it an unfocused melting away of time, everything would pass by in a blur, burned away by the proximity to Keith's return.

Well, goddamn it, that is not how it works. At least not for me. What happens instead is that I have stepped into some kind of cursed time lag where a week takes on the length of an entire month and days are endless and a month appears to go on and on and on like a terrible disco song from the seventies and I can't change the goddamn radio station.

In addition to this time warp, my reward for having reached the last quarter of deployment is being able to be cheek to cheek with the suck. This me and the suck together, saying cheese. What a cute couple we make.

And goddamn it, I know in a week I'll be riding the high of a new month. I know it as sure as I'm sitting here. I'll forget this moment ever happened, except for the fact that I wrote about it. But right now I'm in it and I hate it.