Regretful Lassitude

The word of the day today is lassitude. I've always liked that word. It brings to mind stretching out on a warm rock after a cool swim to let the sunshine bake you dry. I picture my muscles dissolving into gooey pleasure after an orgasm leaves me in a limp state of blissful lassitude.

I am familier enough with the word, that I almost didn't bother opening the e-mail containing its definition today. On a whim, I did open it. I often like the quotes they use when putting the word in context.

Word of the Day for Monday November 28, 2005

lassitude \LASS-uh-tood; LASS-uh-tyood\, noun:
Lack of vitality or energy; weariness; listlessness.

The feverish excitement ... had given place to a dull,
regretful lassitude.
--George Eliot, [1]Romola

Wow, that's nowhere near baking on a hot rock in the sun after a long cool swim! I can see how I've seen that word in that context and how it works. Yet, like so many things, it cuts another direction as well. As a friend said to me recently... "that good nature cuts both ways." The bliss of relaxation can just as easily be the listlessness of apathy.

It's the perfect word for today. The sky is gray and puffy, rain ensconces the house and the general womblike atmosphere leaves me alone with my thoughts. It's a good day for such encompassing gloom. My trip to my hometown last week had me visiting my childhood haunts. I even drove by the family farm where it was finally impressed deeply into me, you can never go home. The place is unrecognizable from the days when my family owned it. I felt it was an omen to let go of that past, let go of the bitterness I still clung to about not inheriting the place as I'd expected to. Now, it doesn't matter. It's not the home I remember, it's not the place my heart resides. It's just another piece of land.

The residence of my heart is certainly in question right now. Where is my home, and where do I belong? I think being in rentals doesn't suite me. I feel without roots, without future. Perhaps being single is not suiting me either. Somehow, the slings and arrows of friendships coming and going in my life strike deeper now than ever before. When I was married, people came and left in my life, and it didn't seem as big a blow. I hate being in a house that doesn't belong to me. I feel like there's no point doing any improvements or making any changes. After all, I'm not going to benefit from them, what's the point? I was to help a friend do some painting and such in their house. Perhaps working on a place someone else has an investment in would be satisfying as well. But, I don't see it working out. Why?

Because friendships seem to be as transient as rental houses in my life. I seem to be incapable of identifying permenancy in my life anymore. I was aware of NRE in the sense of romantic relationships. New Relationship Energy, the glow of the new thing, where everything seems brighter and happier because you think your new partner hung the moon. I guess I just never thought it applied to me, or to friendships as well as romantic relationships. Have people always moved through my life so quickly?

Perhaps it's the nature of getting older that time moves so quickly. It's amazing to me that the year is coming to a close. It was so very recently in my head that my life broke with a big cracking noise at the beginning of the year. It seems like just a few weeks ago that a summer romance was in full bloom. It seems like only yesterday that I realized as the summer project came to a close, so did that blooming flower. Where does the time go?

Life moves so very quickly now. It's all passing by so fast, and I'm struggling to figure out what I've done to show it was well spent. I find myself obsessed with the elderly, thinking of my future and what kind of old person will I be? Will I be in pain? Will I be one of those amazing older people who glide into their old age only having to slow down a bit to accomodate for stiffer joints? Somehow, my guess is more the first than the second. Why do I feel like I'm running out of time to make a real difference? Where is that pressure coming from?

I'm in my early 30's, and presumably there's a lot of time left for me to accomplish a lot in my life. Yet, I see others who are pushing 40, in their 40's and my own parents now in their 50's all feeling the same feelings of regretful lassitude about making a real impression on the world they live in.

And you are young and life is long

And there is time to kill today

And then one day you find

Ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run

You missed the starting gun


I keep thinking I have time, and yet, 10 years ago, I felt like that was the time to get serious. What have I done in that time that has lasted? My kids. They are what I've made that lives on. But, have I given them the roots they need to reach into the uncertainty of their future, do they have a home? No. No, because I don't have a home, I don't have a community, and my future is just as uncertain as their own.