Don't ask

Don't ask me how I'm doing.

Not if you don't really want to know. Not if you're in a hurry or on your way to an appointment or there's ice cream melting in your car or your kids are waiting for you at school or you have to pee or you really were just being polite and you really don't care.

Don't ask me how I'm doing.

Because, like it or not, I just might tell you.

I just might tell you what it feels like when the company you've worked for and that gave you a career you loved for 26 years tosses you aside like a two-day old newspaper with no reason, no explanation and then pretty much ceases to be. I might just tell you what it's like to not only have to find a new job, but an entirely new career. And how it feels to go through the classified ads and realize that you are qualified to do virtually nothing and  to be rejected for half-a-dozen positions.

I might just tell you how terrifying it is not to know what you want to be.

I might just tell you how much fun it is to stay home every day and take care of an ornery  82-year-old woman with a beeper, who can barely walk, who has a sore butt from sitting all the time, who wants her grits just a bit runny, her oatmeal a little soggy, her toast burnt and her eggs soft boiled. Who bruises when you touch her and lets you know it. I might just tell you that it's just like having a baby again, who needs a sippy cup and a bib and her food cut up and to be lifted into and out of the car three times a week to go to dialysis.

I might just tell you how guilty it makes me feel when people tell me what a good person I am for doing it.  That I don't always do it with a smile or a soft heart. And that I tiptoe around my house so I don't wake her up.


I just might tell you how miserable I was throughout Super Bowl week in New Orleans. That it was hell for me -- not because I was downtown working my ass off, but because I wasn't. But all my friends were. All my former colleagues and co-workers were downtown in this massive media center with television personalities and professional athletes and celebrities, and I was making oatmeal. They were writing award-winning stories about the boy I covered in high school who came home to play in the big game and left with a Super Bowl trophy clutched in his hands, and I was making oatmeal.

I might just tell you that the one day I did get to go down there to "visit," they looked at me like I had two heads, and the only "famous" person I got to see was the guy from "Swamp People."

I might just tell you how frustrating it is to want to drag my snarky tween to a Mardi Gras parade or a concert or a movie, or to go out out to dinner with my husband -- or just upstairs -- but we can't because he's living at the ballpark now and there's no one else to sit with Grandma most of the time because everyone else has a life even if I don't.

I might just tell you that I'm losing my mind. Because I am. That I'm stuck, because I am. That I don't know what I'm going to do, because I don't.

And I hate that I'm this person who just might tell you all of this, instead of just smiling and saying, "I'm just fine! How are you?" That I'm the kind of person who will look you dead in the eye and lie to your face. Who wishes you would just hug me. Or buy me a drink. Or two. Or fly off with me to the beach. Where we would have a drink. Or two.

So, don't ask me.

Unless you're willing to listen, and let your ice cream melt.

Doing nothing well

The sun did indeed come up Monday morning.

The day was rather dark and cold and dreary, but somewhere underneath the clouds there was a sun.

The Coach took the day off with me, stayed by my side all day, intending to keep me occupied and, if necessary, from falling apart.  Or, if I did, to be there when I fell.


But I had a house guest, a holdover from the weekend of Times-Picayune good byes. A co-worker I barely knew at the company we both worked for. She worked at the Mother Ship; I worked in the Arctic Outpost. We only became friends through Facebook, when we both realized we shared the same sick humor. Eventually she became a confidante and my cover letter editor.

Plus I had a house to clean after a Sunday send-off of my own making. Luau themed plates and napkins, leis and party dishes had to be packed away for next time (and there will be a next time) in a  china hutch that has to be reorganized after every event to fit them all. There were garlands to remove, crushed fruit and crackers to sweep off the floor. Empty Blue Hawaiian bottles to throw away.


And, honestly, I wasn't as sad as I thought I would be back when they first gave me the news and the end date. It wasn't as traumatic as I imagined. A few tears stung the backs of my eyes, but refused to fall. Mostly it was sadness over what has been lost, what has been taken away, and over those who have not bothered to say good bye. Even now.

I didn't really feel that much different, thanks to Isaac, the pre-Labor Day hurricane that blew water and mold into our building and shut down our office a month earlier than anticipated. My final three weeks of the four month you've-been-fired-but-we-need-you-to-stay were spent working at home, doing what I did for the last two years at the office formerly known as the River Parishes Bureau -- surfing the Internet, keeping abreast of current events on Facebook and Twitter, and waiting for the Mayhem Guy to strike.

So Monday wasn't all that different from the previous days, except that I spent a lot less time on the computer. And I had company.

Tuesday was a different story.

Maybe it was the hangover everyone expected me to have from the weekend. Maybe it was the inevitable emotional crash. Maybe it was just a long time coming.

Tuesday I was lost. Tuesday I was alone. Tuesday I had no purpose. Tuesday I had no motivation. Tuesday, all I wanted to do was sleep.

I didn't know what to do what to do with myself. I didn't even know how to dress. Where was I going to go? And worst of all, perhaps, I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing instead of the nothing I was doing.

I don't do nothing well.

That isn't a grammatical error. I just don't know how to do nothing. I know how to goof off. I know how to procrastinate. In fact, I am the champion of procrastinators. The Coach says it's because of my years as a sports writer on insane deadlines. I do my best work when I'm about to blow my deadline. I seem to thrive under the pressure. So I hold on to it.

Give me a week to do something and I'll take it. All of it. But there is always a mental list in my head of the things I should be doing -- stats, standings, interviews, laundry, cleaning out my closet, weeding the flower beds, house-breaking this damn puppy, teaching myself not to care who's covering (or not covering) what anymore.

Which is why I was a terrible bureau clerk (besides the math and the cash drawer). And a terrible sick person (don't wait on me!). And a terrible vacation person (it's almost over?). I always knew there was something else, somewhere I should be doing.

 And now I am a terrible laid-off person. I can't just lie around on the sofa watching soap operas.

Well, I can. And I did. But I usually feel terrible guilt when I do it.

Now, I have no reason to.

And there's nothing I can do about it.