Despair

I am wearing an almost-black rubber wristband that says DESPAIR. I am wearing it for a week.

A couple of Christmases ago, Sewa Yoleme sent me this wristband as part of a satirical trio that also included the very-black NIHILISM and the very-light-gray APATHY. I wore APATHY once, but then I realized that I had cared enough to put it on, which muddled me rather.

Now that I have left my beloved Northbrook for what is likely the last time, I am wearing DESPAIR for a week. That’s the plan.

In keeping with our ongoing denial, we signed up for two weeks again next year, one in June and one in August, on the off chance that the place doesn’t sell and the owner opens it as a B&B. But it feels like a long shot. And, as I’ve said to others and possibly written somewhere, the uncertainty is beginning to feel like a long breakup. Is this the last time? Is this? Is it more painful to just stop, or is it OK to squeeze as much out of it as you possibly can if you’re really in love?

That spot on earth—and I mean that very spot—has felt like some sort of emotional home to me from the second I first set foot on it more than twenty years ago. It’s partly mine. But not mine in a way that has any legal standing. Maybe I should start thinking of it as the place where my grandfather Trespassers W used to live. The place he used to live that I can’t physically visit.

This is getting whinier than I’d planned. Random thoughts:

• Nothing can replace Northbrook.
• I really believe I’m going to see my Northbrook buddies again. We seem to have bonded.
• Something else will come along that I will love. Something different.
• Now I’ll have time to do things I haven’t done because I wouldn’t not go to Northbrook.

I cried a lot when I left. But I cry a lot every time I leave there. Maybe I can trick myself into thinking that this time’s no different—that nothing can keep us apart.