Bittersweet nothings

There are moments when you commit yourself to things – like quitting smoking, for example, or promising to drive someone to the airport at 5:30 in the morning – that seem perfectly reasonable at the time, eminently doable activities that will be charitable or salubrious or just generally make life better for you or the people around you. When making these commitments, more often then not you feel magnanimous, capable and much like Leonardo DiCaprio in that lousy boat movie, with the "I'm king of the world" and all that stuff, and you can actually convince yourself that what you're really doing is engaging in something your grandfather would call "character-building."

A bespeckled man, argyle sweatervest stretched tightly over a pudgy tummy, reclining half-heartedly in a lazyboy: "Yessiree, sweetie. That's definitely some character-building you're doin.' Tough work, but it'll work itself out in the long run. Meanwhile, here: have a humbug."

And for the most part, I'm getting used to humbugs, even the kind that are all fuzzy with pocket lint and taste vaguely of muscle relaxants. But sometimes there are days when I just can't swallow those humbugs anymore. Sometimes there are days that I don't want to build character. Days like today, when every circumstance in the world was trying to keep me in Toronto with my husband, when nature and the Toronto Airport Authority had become one sweet siren call urging me to stay one more dearly-wanted day, capping off an already blessed weekend with the luxury of unforeseen circumstance. A day when I had to jump through countless hoops and fight my way through airport after airport just to get a chance for a seat on an airplane going in the vague direction of my destination. A day when my character-building site is frigid and barren, and the only thing that greets my efforts is a cold, lonely bed and the poor substitute of telecommunication, knowing that it will be another ten days before I again touch the warm flesh of the person I love more than anything else in the world.

And some days, that's just too, too bitter to swallow.

Comments

[lmno]

Would a lasagna, garlic bread and salad on the 22nd make it any better? I cannot do anything for your problem, but I am VERY good at filling voids in creative culinary ways.

I could even make a chocolate cake from scratch for you, I'm that good.