I hate it when suppressed memories try to resurface.
In the last four days I’ve burned through all three of the Hunger Games books. It didn’t end well for me. All through the last three chapters I could see what was coming and I was screaming NO NO NO NO in my head. I was trying to squeeze the ending I wanted out of the pages. I slowed down, frequently stopping to do other things. It was almost over, I knew it and things just weren’t going the way I imagined. Then I read the last page and burst into tears. Not because it was sad. The story was no tragedy, it is actually a happy ending. At least as happy as you can get in that world.
But I was rooting for the team that lost, for my own selfish reasons. I can’t say more than that because Dorothy (my friend from Kansas) hasn’t finished reading the third book.
Now I am extremely depressed and listening to old Bon Jovi, which never fails to dreg up memories from August of 1986, thus compounding the depression. One fine side effect of my metabolic disorder is the memories have become vague and watery. I do mean watery. Earlier today I was asking my mom and cousin Slim (the one with the Camaro) about a trip to California taken in my five year old life. Slim said that never happened and my mom said she doesn’t recall. But I have these distinct memories of me and Slim going on a road trip to California with our great grandparents. We were in my grand-dad’s turquoise Chevy pickup that was brand new at the time. I remember eating sandwiches on a picnic table at the side of the road. And I remember the beach. It was dirty and windy and gloomy. But I don’t remember being at the home of my great uncle who we were visiting.
Slim says it was a trip to Arkansas to see our great-great uncle. She was a year older and has a fully functioning memory so I have to take her word for it. But these images in my brain are vivid, not imagined. Finally, to get my mind off of it I decided they were memories planted by the aliens. (Calm down, I’m joking.) The ladies at work got a good laugh when I told them there was a road trip in my life that is apparently completely imagined.
And Mom, before you try and remind me about going to the beach near Hattiesburg, MS after an oil spill and suggest that is the source of these memories, stop. There are distinct memories of that trip in my noggin as well. I hope.
Maybe it is age. No it can’t be that, I already cried a bucket last week after over-dosing on Hinder videos and realizing that I’m too old to party like that anymore. I will love Austin Winkler’s songwriting as long as he stays based in OKC and doesn’t move to LA. LA ruins songwriters. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Anyway, back to the Hunger Games. Halfway through the first book I was thinking the world in the book was uncomfortably close to where I imagine the country is heading. Our government’s pyramid tax scheme has destroyed us, it is just a matter of time before the house of cards falls. If that upsets you, I can’t apologize. We might as well get used to things going back to the way they were in the bad old days. Judging from the way I felt the week after the tornado, I have a feeling my pampered ass will be the first to crumble. (I had to really resist the urge to say crack instead of crumble. Think about it.)
I doubt we will ever have a lottery to determine which of our kids have to fight to the death. But the real victims of the collapse will be the kids. All the horrors now that we like to pretend don’t exist will become more common. Here in this white bread community we don’t see as much of that kind of misery. But it’s around. Think of Rowan Ford.
Desperately, I hope that I am wrong. Pessimistically, I fear I am fairly close to correct. That is why I can never share the joy when a friend or family member tell me a little one is on the way. Really? You want to bring another soul into this world with the legacy we are leaving behind?
But then I have a conversation that makes me realize that like this generation and the one before it and on into infinity, this new generation will grind on through time, unless the earth flies apart. Earlier tonight someone said to me, ‘So many times in my life things have happened and I have thought I just couldn’t go on, but here I am, I got through it.’
I guess that is true for everyone. Probably true for me, if I don’t die of boredom.
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