A Bit of Oprah

      I've been in a crappy mood ever since the visit with my stuff. You could probably tell. And I can't think of anything witty (or stupid) to say about either the British -- or living in London. Or the side of a hill in Italy. Or anything.   

      Just holed up in this flat feeling sorry for myself. Which is really boring, self-destructive, stupid and any other adjective you can think of. I agree with it all. I'm sorry.

      I guess I'm just not that good at sitting around here, doing the laundry, cleaning the rented flat -- and trying to come up with things to do every day to entertain myself without spending too much money. 

      I'm lonely, but I've stopped reaching out to the few people I do know. 

      I miss my boys. I miss my book club. I miss my water aerobics class. My yoga class. My old colleagues. My old job. My old house. I haven't replaced any of that with anything. So I don't know what I'm doing here. Most of the time, I'm just plotting leaving.

     Last night, I watched Oprah on TV.  She's on at 11 p.m. on a cable channel. The way I'm feeling, I could do a 24/7 Oprah marathon for weeks without a problem.  

     Anyway, she had on a group of morbidly obese teenagers talking about the issues that got them where they were.

     At one point, a facilitator asked the teenagers one by one to angrily finish this sentence: "I'm angry that...." 

     For the exercise, their parents were made to just listen. They couldn't respond. The facilitator egged the kids on to answer the question as many times as possible, as emotionally as possible. At the end, the parents were allowed only to hug their children without comment.

    It was pretty powerful to watch. "I'm angry that my father left you," shouted one obese boy at his mother. "I'm angry that he left on my birthday." 

    "I'm angry that you're my only friend," one girl cried to her mother. And so on.

     Later, all the kids said they felt a whole lot better just getting it off their chests, just the act of being able to say what was really bothering them.  

     I lay in bed, thinking. Okay, why not. What are you angry about? Just say it to yourself.

     I'm angry that I'm so far from my boys. 

     I'm angry that most of my stuff is in storage.

     I'm angry that the newspaper job I loved went down the tubes.   

     I'm angry because I'm not sure I want to be here, but I don't know what to do about it.   

     I'm angry that there's no easy solution.    

     Okay, that's better. Now what?