Tuesday, June 10, 2008
please, let us be in our own bed, having just kissed each other and eaten a cookie.
a friend's mom is dying. obviously, this is one of the biggest scaries i can think of. and i wish i didn't think of it, almost every day. my own mom has lived a life in which almost anyone who could die did, of sudden illnesses and accidents, and then she lost a couple of babies. i don't actually remember her referencing this stuff very often; i guess it was just in the air. and it's the only explanation i have for why i am so preoccupied with the possibility of . . . you know.
and i know everyone's preoccupied with death. it's the big preoccupier. but i end up thinking at least a couple of times a day, somewhat clinically, about what would happen if one of my big three, the ones who constitute my legal family born and made, left the planet. the why is troubling. so i'll be . . . prepared? if and when it does happen? that's awful, and makes no sense. it might be the truth, though.
you know what i really think it is? it's that if i can escape being one of those people with the hubris to think they're going to be okay, maybe no big tragedies will come my way. if i live under my desk, maybe whoever controls the earthquakes will say, wow, she certainly isn't taking her safety for granted. gold star! pass over this house!
it's sick. if i can't have assurance that no one will die until we're all old and tired and ready to leave each other, the least i could have is a life not spent under constant agida. imagine if i'm unlucky and normal enough to be visited by great loss, and i spent all this now, all this potentially happy time when nothing was wrong chewing my guts out over the possibility.
i try to put it away. i try not to constantly rehearse grief. and when other people find this happening to them, it's right for it to be sobering. but as i try to be comforting, my guts are revealing that i am actually a selfish child because one part of me is definitely thinking: i'm so glad it isn't me. except that some day it will be, and i can't bear to think of what every day after that will be like.
and i know everyone's preoccupied with death. it's the big preoccupier. but i end up thinking at least a couple of times a day, somewhat clinically, about what would happen if one of my big three, the ones who constitute my legal family born and made, left the planet. the why is troubling. so i'll be . . . prepared? if and when it does happen? that's awful, and makes no sense. it might be the truth, though.
you know what i really think it is? it's that if i can escape being one of those people with the hubris to think they're going to be okay, maybe no big tragedies will come my way. if i live under my desk, maybe whoever controls the earthquakes will say, wow, she certainly isn't taking her safety for granted. gold star! pass over this house!
it's sick. if i can't have assurance that no one will die until we're all old and tired and ready to leave each other, the least i could have is a life not spent under constant agida. imagine if i'm unlucky and normal enough to be visited by great loss, and i spent all this now, all this potentially happy time when nothing was wrong chewing my guts out over the possibility.
i try to put it away. i try not to constantly rehearse grief. and when other people find this happening to them, it's right for it to be sobering. but as i try to be comforting, my guts are revealing that i am actually a selfish child because one part of me is definitely thinking: i'm so glad it isn't me. except that some day it will be, and i can't bear to think of what every day after that will be like.
