All Talked Out

Last night I talked too much. It has been so long since I got a chance to offload like that.

The victim was not a spouse, close friend or relative. Just a work colleague who is a good listener and a good conversationalist who was in the right place at the right time. And not even an old work colleague.

My car is in service. And so after work, I went into a coffee shop near the office and had them call a cab for me. A coffee and cake break seemed a nicer option than waiting in the heat for a cab.

Said colleague was already there when I walked in. He invited me to join him so I did. We started talking - about work at first and then from there onwards, the conversation seemed to take on a life of its own.

It's so rare that you meet someone you feel that happening with, isn't it?

We argued quite a bit. Mostly it was general stuff. But the personal undertone was there. Never actually specified or articulated but quite understood that we both feel the way we do about the things being discussed because of our personal lives. Even the uncertainty of neither one of us being sure just how much the other knows or may have heard, even that didn't seem to be a problem. No direct questions were asked, no particulars or details revealed. Not necessary.

My cab came and went. Almost 2 hrs later, I called for another one.

When I got home, I felt lighter yes but tired. All talked out.

Later at night on the phone with my husband, there was a comment on my uncharacteristic quietness. Didn't really have very much to say.

K didn't want to let it go. The more he probed around the issue, the less forthcoming I felt like being. Truth is, I was enjoying the long-missed curiousity and interest in me, in what I was really thinking and feeling.

The last thing I wanted was to end the suspense and have things fall back into the recent usual pattern.

:)

Obama

I wish Obama would win the US presidency.

I haven't been following the elections so I don't really know anything about what type of candidate Obama is or what his chances are.

But I keep hearing from all sorts of racists that America would never elect a black man. They do not say it to condemn America. They say it because they are so complacent in their racism that they simply can't believe anyone else could possibly feel otherwise.

I would very much enjoy the look on some faces if and when the most powerful nation on earth DOES elect a black man to its highest office. Maybe then they would realize how the rest of the world has moved on and left them behind to wallow in their bigotry. Maybe then they would know how truly repulsive these sentiments are.

I realize it would be irrational to expect Americans to elect their president on that basis. And I am not suggesting by any means that those who don't vote for Obama are racist. Many of them - I hope most - would probably have their perfectly valid reasons.

It's just that if he WERE infact a good candidate - and if he WERE to get elected, then I think it would be a great example to set and it would silence a lot of voices all over the world that should have been silenced a long time ago.

Credit

The two of us are sprawled on the bed, not touching, physically spent to the point where we can't take anymore and space is such an overwhelming need that we have to break all contact.

Minutes go by as we try to catch our breath and recover. Something stops buzzing in my ears and the room suddenly feels very quiet. I roll onto my side and close my eyes. I am tired and sleepy but I am fighting to stay awake because I don't want the night to be over. I listen for his breathing. Is he done for the night? Is he asleep?

I wait. And am not disappointed. A few minutes later, he's asking if am hungry. I get out of bed without answering. I am trying to keep the goofy grin hidden from him.

I go to the bathroom first and stand under the shower. It wakes me up a little. Enough to go to the kitchen and see about getting us a late night snack.

The intention is that we will eat it in bed but he comes into the kitchen and starts eating the filling out of my sandwiches. I am laughing and slapping his hands. I like to serve things properly. A brief struggle ensues over the food.

Then we quiet down and we eat on our feet, leaning on the kitchen counters, talking about the sort of things people talk about when they just don't want to be silent.

We keep grinning at each other like we just discovered a cure for cancer or something.

We go back to bed. And this time he's out like a light in no time. I lie there in the dark for ages, smiling to myself. Too happy to sleep.

***************************************************************


These days I am nearly always angry with him because I don't feel good most of the time and I blame him for it. And being angry about one thing (his abscence), it keeps my mind focused on all the other ways in which I feel he failed me. Like the fact that we're still childless. And the fact that he's no longer as patient with my neurosis as he used to be.

I mean, I can remember crying in his arms. I can remember him taking so much time to calm me down, to laugh away whatever happened to be bothering me at a given time.

I can remember when he seemed invincible to me, when I thought he could handle anything including me and anything I chose to dump on him. All without complaint and in the best of humor.

Now I feel like if I cry he's more likely to throw something at me than take me in his arms. I have to go to other people for that type of comfort. And am not allowed to complain to him AT ALL. About anything. Not unless I want to bring out the worst in him. He just will not have it.

It's kind of ironic that before we got married, when most of my freaking out was done out of wedding nerves or fear of commitment or seperation anxiety (from my family), he had so much patience. Those seem like trivial issues when compared to what am going through now or what I went through after the miscarriage. And yet he has so much less time and energy for me now.

Can it be that I used up all his support over the little things so that when the going started to get really tough, he was out of patience? Or is it that I took too much and didn't give enough back? Or that he's got his own issues now?

Is that how it works? And if it is, why won't he say so? Why won't he tell me what I can do to fix it? What, if anything, he needs from me now?

Sometimes I feel so shut out by the physical and emotional distance that I wish he'd just come out and tell me that it's over, that he doesn't love me or need me anymore. Even that seems better than never really knowing what's on his mind.

I told him that once quite recently and all he said was that if you're in love, you never think about breaking up. And I was left feeling like I had to apologize for bringing it up.

Whatever. So I am angry at him now because he's not really doing very well on the making-me-feel-good scale.

With that in mind, the Libra in me decided it's only fair that I should give him credit for also being behind all the times in my life I was so happy I couldn't sleep. I should give him credit for nights like the one above which was not atypical by any means.

Like the first time he said he loved me. That night I thought I'd never want to sleep again. I had so much energy I never even got into bed all night.

And so many other different occasions. Too many to list or to count really.

Readers of this blog know that insomnia is the story of my life. But that was happy insomnia, insomnia because you're so happy that falling asleep feels like missing out, insomnia because you WANT to be aware - not because you can't sleep. THAT I would recommend to anyone. And that's what he can and did give me.

It's the high that makes all the lows worthwhile. Or does it?

For now I guess it does, sort of. I just hope that at some point things will get better so that I don't have to keep relying on the past to make the present bearable.

The Car

So today I sold his car.

I've been putting this off for so long.

Friday night as I was getting ready to meet some friends for drinks and sheesha at the Sheraton, my friend R - who has been my rock lately - called and asked if I could drive my husband's car instead of my own since he knew someone who might be interested in it for the asking price.

This was remarkable since quite frankly the number my husband was insisting on was extortionate. It's a nice car and he's taken good care of it but this IS Abu Dhabi. Everyone can afford to buy or finance a new car so it's not the hottest market in the world for used cars. Most people who'd shown interest before would try to bargain it way down.

I had no patience for bargaining really because if truth be told, irrational though it might be, I didn't really want to see the car go. So whenever someone complained about the price or tried to counter-offer, I promised to get back to them and then just stopped taking their calls.

R's friend turned out to be the manager of the restaurant. We all had dinner on the house. And then the resturant manager and I went out for a test drive.

The guy loved the car. And he didn't flinch at the asking price.

When we got back to the Sheraton, I called my husband and gave him a full report. He said to go ahead.

And so today the money is in my account and the car is gone.

It's silly to be emotionally attached to the car just because it's the one he drove when I first met him, isn't it?

Most of our pre-marital quality time together was spent in that car. Venues in town close at midnight or soon after. Except for the clubs. And back then, we didn't do much clubbing because we wanted to talk. And so we would get into the car and just drive around, stopping at 24-hr coops and gas stations for food and cigarrettes. We would take turns driving for hours to nowhere really. In circles - coming back to the same point over and over again.

They were good times. And I'm going to miss that car.