Nightmare Therapy

            The other night Liz woke up from a creepy nightmare and moaned this weird guttural moan as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.  I was sitting at my desk a few feet away.  I didn’t know what was going on.  All I knew was she made this awful noise, sounded like an Exorcist version of “Ooooooh!” 

I asked her, “So the sixties weren’t good to you, huh?”

            She knows me.  She doesn’t mind such talk.  She ignored me.

            The last year and a half to two years I have had some reasonably serious issues with anxiety.  Panic attacks and whatnot.  For the longest time, I would have one of my moments and Liz would ask me what was wrong and I would answer, “Ooooh, just me.” 

            One night at the gas station I was standing outside the car and Liz was on her way in to pay and I asked her not to leave just yet and she said, “Having a moment?  Okay.  I’m here.”  So that became the lingo.  Having a moment replaced Just me. 

            Over the last few months I’ve gotten my meds straightened out with the doc, mild stuff, nothing serious, and I don’t really have panic attacks anymore.  I’m not sure you’d even call ‘em stress attacks.  It’s more like I’m all of a sudden a teenager in love for a few minutes at a time.  Heart starts racing.  My knees go funny.  Everything’s really important. 

            Is that what we’ve come to?  Teenagers get to fall in love, whereas we middle agers get a chemical imbalance but it’s alright they can treat that?  Makes me want to lash out and have a moment on purpose and make a mess and break something small and insignificant. 

            I wouldn’t, of course.  I’m not like that.  I’d just have to clean it up afterward. 

            You wouldn’t believe it, but this is how my mother single handedly destroyed my future in rock n’ roll.  I tried to be a rock guy.  I had the hair, the clothes, I learned the music, I learned to say things you don’t mean or generally haven’t thought out, I learned to avoid any assimilation with groups and productive members of society, I learned the power slide, I had it nearly perfected. 

            But when it came to trashing a hotel room, I just couldn’t do it.  Couldn’t bring myself to do it.  And it’s my mother’s fault.  “You made the mess, you clean it up!”  She still denies any blatant or specific campaign to thwart my rock n’ roll career, she says it’s just common sense.  “You made the mess, you clean it up!” 

            I’m old enough now, I can tell her, “Mom, I live with two teenagers, and that is not so common a philosophy.  These things that you keep carrying on about, common sense, manners, respect for those elders you mentioned…”  (I kid.)

            Anyway, this has become the new lingo.  Instead of, “What’s wrong, honey?  Just you?  Having a moment?  Are you in love with something?  Do I need to fetch yer medication?”  Now she asks me as she nods her head with a sort of pained but empathetic look on her face, “So the sixties weren’t good to you, huh?”

            I shake my head slowly to and fro.  “No they were not.”