14 things that have gone wrong lately

Disclaimer: I know this post is mopey. I know it's selfish and unattractive. I'm attempting to make myself feel better.

1. My hard drive on my beloved red laptop died.
2. Said hard drive is likely beyond repair.
3. Said hard drive contained important photographs, papers, documents, playlists.
4. I broke my river shoes while in the river. Have no money to replace river shoes.
5. Due to lack of river shoes, I sliced the bottom of my foot on a rock or shell.
That was on Sunday. It still hurts today, and it's a really tiny cut.
6. I have obnoxious shower doors that Husband is irrationally attached to. They are
disgusting. Spent 30 minutes scrubbing them with no discernible change.
7. I am returning to work on August 18.
8. My attempts to prepare to return to work were thwarted, twice, today.
9. My nose piercing looks like a zit, and my hair is awful.
10. Husband was in a bad mood today.
11. I had car trouble yesterday, and I couldn't get in touch with Husband. I ended up
cutting a piece of my car off in 95 degree weather with second grade scissors
while Mr. Independent screamed in the back seat.
12. Returned home from the river to find mold growing on Mr. Independent's ceiling.
Again.
13. I am turning 28 on Sunday.
14. There is a chance that I will have to spend some time this weekend with some
family members I like to pretend don't exist. They hurt me pretty deeply, but my
parents have asked me not to make waves and stay silent on the issue.

So I'm sitting here throwing myself a huge pity party. I've been walking around all mopey-like for the last couple of days or lying curled on the couch, the bed, or the floor in the fetal position telling myself that these things are not such a big deal. They will work themselves out, and at the end of the day, my family's healthy, we have food and a roof over our heads and can't I just be grateful for that. I tend to fall apart and/or flip out when things go wrong. I have a really hard time handling kinks in plans and setbacks. But I didn't lose it this time. I've just been a bit zombielike, unresponsive, mopey, not answering the phone, even though I know that hearing about someone else's life would undoubtedly make me feel better and less like a crappy friend (sorry, Leighann). Then I drove to Target.
The song "Back on the Chain Gang" came on the radio, and I started sobbing when I heard the line "Those were the happiest days of my life," and I realized exactly how upset I am over losing my hard drive, and everything else that is going awry these days just compounds it.
My hard drive had (has?) all of my photographs from Europe, graduate school, and when Husband and I were dating, not to mention all of my pictures of Mr. Independent. Initially I was upset about losing the pictures of Mr. Independent, but I realized tonight, in my car, that I'm ultimately upset about losing those pictures from Europe and graduate school, losing my thesis, losing the IMs (remember AIM?) that Husband and I exchanged during the early days of our relationship. While I understand that they are just things, they hold more meaning than that for me. Those things are a composite of the happiest point in my life so far, a part of my life that I long for every single day with a longing deeper than anything I've ever in my life experienced. It's not like I dwell on New York or graduate school, but I miss it. I miss the people that were in my life, temporarily, and that are gone from my life forever. I miss the excitement of the city, the simple blessing of being in school, full-time, the newness of my relationship with Husband. Those things that were on my hard drive represent a different time in my life, one where I was happier, more hopeful, and where I had so much potential and possibility abounded. Those things represent a freedom I no longer have because I have a child, a husband, a mortgage, and a job. I'm not ungrateful for that, but in choosing that particular path, I gave up the life I had and the freedoms I had. I rarely looked at the pictures or the IMs, but I knew they were there if I wanted them. It's almost like they were proof that this other me existed-the one who was optimistic with disposable income, friends, and freedom. Now that they're gone, I don't have anything other than fuzzy memories to remind me that I was fully happy once, therefore I can be fully happy again. Someday.
And so I cried, hard, on the way to Target. I pulled myself together because I certainly was not going to be the girl who cries in her car in the parking lot. Then I came home and realized what it was that I wanted, what would make me feel better.
I wanted my husband. I wanted him to turn off the TV (thus indicating that I am, in fact, more important than the World Series of Poker) and say, Let's go to Bruster's. Or give me a hug with the TV off, or earlier this afternoon take Mr. Independent and go to the fundamentalist grocery store or the neighborhood flower shop and buy me red roses or pink roses. No one's ever bought me roses before. I wanted him to tell me he'd take the shower doors off tomorrow and why don't I go and buy a shower curtain and while I'm at it a landline so that I have a better chance of getting in touch with him should I have an emergency again. I wanted all of that without having to say all of that. I wanted him to understand, to just know.
But I know that he doesn't understand; he doesn't just know, and I believe that the understanding, the just knowing, doesn't actually exist. So I retreated to my purple bedroom, lay on the bed, and quietly cried alone.
Soon, I will emerge from my purple bedroom, hand the computer over to Husband, and go take a shower as hot as I can tolerate, and when I am done, it will be nearly midnight, almost a new day with new possibilities and new opportunities to be better, to remedy what's gone wrong lately, and it will be time for my pity party to be over and time for my sucking it up to begin. I am sure everything will be okay, but right now, very little is okay, and for my own sanity, I have to acknowledge that.