...perhaps i've already written about my pre-teen love affair with Patrick Swayze, my obsession with North and South and all things Dirty Dancing (yes, i own both soundtracks and the live concert DVD)...i've seen every movie he ever made...my 62-year-old grandma took me to see Road House in the theater...in my childhood reverie, i convinced myself i would one day marry him...
...when he died, i mourned...even though it had been 20 years since i'd gotten the stock 8x10 photo with his (somewhat speculative) personalized message...
 |
the photo i got in the eighth grade from Mrs. Anderson,
my PE teacher who knew the Swayze's veterinarian,
and who passed along the 4-page letter i'd written
(in green ink) where i told Patrick Swayze all about
my obsession with him, including my desire to waltz
with him in my garage...the photo is signed "Joyce,
Thanks for the Letter Love Ya, Patrick Swayze"
...i framed it and kept it next to my bed until i went
away to college...
|
..i get a go-get-the-straight-jacket feeling knowing i want to listen to Mrs. Patrick Swayze recount the last years of my childhood obsession's life...but i can't keep myself away...not only does the program promise to be about one of my favorite topics--death--it combines my other passion--pretending i'm a celebrity's secret wife...
...but the real reason i'm not going to miss it is that Mrs. Patrick Swayze is going to recount surviving the disintegration of the man she loved for 34 years...it's taken 8 years of marriage for me to reach a point where i actively fear my husband's death...a good friend of mine almost lost her husband this year and the panic that ensued from her experience nearly crushed me...i thank the universe daily for Adam, even on days he's so contrary i want to drown him in a pool of his own spit...
...when he's snoring next to me at 2am or wakes me in the middle of the night because i'm sleeping entwined with him, i have a moment of flash-forward where i see myself as an old woman with sagging titties and no bed partner...i glimpse myself in a quiet house, no guitar strumming, no recliner in the living room...and when the aaahhhh moment passes, that permanence freezes me, fear creeps in under the covers, and i want to hold Adam so close i can't tell where one of stops and the other begins...
...then i send a request out into the universe that goes like this: please let the zombies eat me first during their inevitable apocalypse...if they don't, i'll kill my own child rather than have her eaten and spend the final moments of my own life hopelessly running in circles
...then i calm down and get serious: i ask just to die first...i know that i could never survive very long without Adam...even if he dropped tomorrow...i'd be a complete train wreck, Ellie would have to raise herself because i'd be too busy hiding, crying, and otherwise thrashing against circumstance...child services would inevitably intervene...she'd end up living with one of my sisters...i'd turn to heroin, maybe even a little cocaine...eventually i'd fade off the grid, my child's life ruined, my husband dead...
...so, universe, while you're feeling magnanimous, please please please take me first...
I wish I had known this back in HS, we could have bonded over Dirty Dancing! ;)
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine how I would ever recover if I lost my snoring bed partner, either. After so long I think it would be like half of me was always missing.
You know, Joy, the one thing this summer taught me is that I can live without Josh but it would be such a horrible life. I know plenty of people go on to find other loves after the death of a spouse or an SO, but after losing someone so dear to me once, I don't think I could bear to go through it again. I think if I lost him, I'd be alone forever. I couldn't make myself that vulnerable again. I can't imagine letting anyone else see me, really see me, all those secret and stupid and disgusting and less than noble parts of me that Josh knows about already.
ReplyDeletelunabee34