Cabin Fever

It would be beyond lovely to walk to the door, open it, walk outside, and keep walking for as long as I wanted to. In reality, simply to go to the mailbox at the curb, I must put on shoes with tread enough that I won't slip, a heavy coat, a hat, a scarf, and thick gloves. Then when I get to the mailbox, I have to reach across a frozen snowbank to open the mailbox.

I did a little sketching yesterday. Nothing really important, just doodling things to keep my hands busy.

My husband has received an invitation from some people he grew up with to join them in April at Toledo Bend for a reunion of the Deadend Boys. He grew up on a deadend street and was friends with a number of people who lived there then. But that was forty years ago. The photo they included with the invitation was one taken of my husband in a group of people. He had his arm around an attractive brunette who is not me, even though he and I were dating at the time. (He'd gone back to Lafayette for a visit.) Gee, nothing like feeling welcome and included, huh? I'm tempted to write to them and say, "Get over it. High school was not the Glory Days for everyone. If you haven't bothered keeping in touch with him for the last forty years, why all of a sudden do you contact him in this effort to recapture your lost youth?" Okay, the jealousy bug bit me. I've been with my husband since we met on April 12, 1970, and we've gone through a lot together. Those few years of his childhood growing up haven't really meant that much to him. He doesn't try to keep up with what's happened to any of them, he never talks about them, he doesn't miss them or the days they spent growing up together, and he's not sentimental. He doesn't plan to go to this little get-together. Still, we've been together so long, it's hard for me to imagine him happy with other people. It's like neither of us existed until we met each other. I can't bear seeing a photo of him at age 18 or so (with a full thick head of hair) with his arm around another woman, and I'll bet he'd feel the same about seeing an old photo of me with some other guy. (Not that there are any out there. For some reason, I never took any photos of any of my previous boyfriends, nor did they take any of me.)

Silly stuff for an old gal like me, huh? I don't mind admitting that I adore my husband (even when he snores), and I don't want to share him with other people. It's bad enough that we have to be apart for three or four days a week. When we're together, I want to have him all to myself. It often doesn't work out, since I have various things to do, as does he, and we don't always want to do those things together. (For instance, he'd rather go to the dentist than to accompany me to an arts and crafts store, and I'd rather have a colonoscopy than to sit and watch a football game or baseball game at a stadium--televised doesn't count--or go to one of his departmental functions.)

It's the last day of January, and our snow total is much higher than average. February doesn't look to be much better. How lovely it would be to visit Ellie in Savannah or Mike in San Antonio, wonderful warm places, no hats and coats required. Alas, there is no break in my schedule for a couple of months, so I'm just going to have to endure cabin fever for many many days to come.