Holiday Season & Job Search

This Christmas will be the first time in many years that Granny will not hold court from the corner of her living room sofa. She survived past Thanksgiving despite a sobering diagnosis from her doctor and hospice nurse. She waited until family returned from Sunday church service and took her last breath. I was miles away in New York when she passed away. My mother called immediately to relay the news. We went back and forth on the phone, my insisting that Granny hadn't died, she insisting that I'd have to return to help lay Granny to rest.

I was overwhelmed by the news that I'd no longer see Granny in that familiar spot, wearing her housecoat and fuzzy slippers she favored later in life when indoors.

My new job search has been ego-deflating since I returned from Houston for Granny Gums' wake and funeral. I've had no energy or desire to look for a job. I'm having difficulty watching anything on TV that deals with death. I recently watched Steel Magnolias and teared up during cemetery scene. I've never been emotional when watching funerals or death on TV and in movies. I am a big fan of Six Feet Under on HBO.

What is New Year's Eve and New Year's Day without Granny's reminding us to eat black-eyed peas for good luck?

I'm reminded of the play Death Comes To Us All, Mary Agnes, if only for the title that I'm not excluded from the death and mourning. I know the wounds will eventually heal, but it seems just like yesterday that I spoke to Granny on the phone.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

A few couples I know have broken up in recent weeks, and I wonder if it's the heat that made them cross, or if the relationship ran its course after ten, seven, or five years, respectively.

Relationships can be difficult to maintain in an image-obsessed society of perfect abs, derrière, and polished white teeth. Is anyone to blame? Or should everyone be concerned about health, weight, and nutrition?

There's usually an emptiness leading up to the final decision to separate, followed by packing suitcases, giving away shared items, and alerting family and friends of the inevitable, irreconcilable breakup.

What precipitates a breakup? Some couples are seemingly impenetrable against outside attacks, wandering eyes, and occasional boredom and annoyances that are a part of every relationship. Are the couples that breakup not trying hard enough to hold onto each other, salvage the relationship?

When a couple has been together for more than two or three years, the shared history should account for something. There are any number of books in the Self-Help section of Barnes & Noble or Borders Bookstore. I have four such books in my collection: Life Strategies, Self Matters, Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, and thoughts without a thinker. I've read two of them, and never made the time to read the other two. Why? I don't know. There's only so much internalization and self-reflection I can take before I'm tempted to shutdown and hide in a dark room.

I imagine striking out alone after living together for years is painful. Several couples in my apartment building have done so since I've lived here, remnants of their lives together stacked in the lobby for all to see and rummage through like an African vulture picking at a carcass after a pack of lions have feasted. Their lives together frozen in time in the outdated blue dresser drawer and the unopened yellow latex gloves.

I tend to think of country songs by Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, or Loretta Lynn, or court cases when people breakup. But more so than not, heartbreak usually spirals us into depression, sloth, and one too many bad tearjerker movies on cable TV. Pass the tissue, buttered popcorn, and Klondike ice cream bar.