Cheesesteaks and Soft Pretzels

It's 12 days into 2005. It's three days from our return to California from our Mexican cruise, and subsequently three days since we learned that our house had been burglarized while we were away. I was fine on Sunday. I came home, took inventory, accepted the fact that all of my jewelry, my mother's jewelry and my grandmother's jewelry was gone. As the days have gone by, I've gotten increasingly bitter and upset about everything. Today is the worst day. I'm perpetually on the verge of tears. I can't focus. I'm so fucking angry about everything. Tonight I realized that they took my laundry basket and my goddamned fabric softener, and I started screaming and yelling at the top of my lungs in my basement. I can't handle it. I can't even breathe sometimes. I don't know what to do. Everything is gone. All the electronics and the tools can be replaced, but what about my family's stuff? What about the checkbooks and the birth certificates and the titles to the cars and the social security card? Every call I make to straighten things out leads to 12 more calls. It will never be fixed.

I'm home alone tonight while C gives a presentation at a conference in Mt. View. I'm terrified to be in the house alone. I hear all sorts of noises that scare the hell out of me. I'm convinced that someone is coming through the window. About 15 minutes ago, I almost hyperventilated. I don't know how I'm ever going to make it past this. I've been through so much shit in the last year, and I just don't know if I can take any more. I've more than exceeded my limits. And the worst part about it all is that the loss of the jewelry and the memories is like losing my mom and grandmom all over again, and I can't take it. It hurts so badly. I don't know how I can make it through this.

It's January 1. I've just left behind what could arguably be the worst year of my life. I'm leaving for a week-long cruise in the morning. Things should be great. I should be happy and delighted and looking ahead.

Instead, I have a flooded basement, a leaky roof, a furnace that stopped working and a car that's making a horrific grinding sound. My business has put me darned close to financial ruin. If not for the jillion Membership Rewards points that C has accrued over the past 10 years of business travel, we wouldn't be able to afford vacation at all (thank god for free vacations). I'm scared. I feel completely lost, worse than I did when my mother first died. The holidays have been horrific from an emotional standpoint. I feel completely crippled. The only consolation I have is sex.

I need to write on vacation. I need to spend immense amounts of time writing and getting very bad things out of my head.