Vacuum

I hope I don’t need to change the title to Richard’s Whininess. Lord knows there enough of that on the web.

Since Alex returned home for a few months my mood sometimes stark beyond reason. OK, moodiness is outside reason. (Shouldn’t be.)

Last night after the small satisfaction of tidying up a few website related issues I found myself feeling blank and sterile.

I didn’t want to get out of the chair. Much less listen to music, watch a movie or open a book. Good thing breathing is involuntary.

Eventually I shook the paralysis off. Read a little bit of Harry Hirschfield’s Abie the Agent (nothing you’d know about unless you are a fan of things like early twentieth century newspaper strips about Jewish car dealers in New York City).

Then I went to bed. Very, very, very early to bed. Tossed, turned, contorted, flipped, writhed - you get the idea for about eleven hours.

I was puzzled. It isn’t as if Alex hasn’t had to leave before. Then it hit me.

Charles is dead; Alex is absent.

For the last several years even if someone wasn’t living in the house with me (and that only for a very short period) there’s always been someone to occupy my emotions in the flesh.

Not that Charles wasn’t often a pest of exceptional order. But I could do him little favors or a reassuring hug. I’m no longer have anyone’s emotional needs to cope with or share here. Even though Charles was very much an ex-lover if you part without hate there’s a residue of special feelings.

Or maybe I do need to feel needed. Nothing wrong with that if it in a healthy proportion.

Maybe I’d have felt better if Alex and I had been able to chat.

I have to retrain my emotions.

With luck emotional harmony will return in a few more days.