Death

Death…I feel like someone, or something has drifted away from me and into death. Such an all-encompassing miasma…feeling like I have missed something vital to my existence or is about to happen and I will not notice its coming or passing.

Perhaps it is the decisions about my life and its purpose that is the root cause of all this. Perhaps it is giving into the limitations presented to me by my aging and declining physical abilities. Mental capacities seem to drift up and away into the morning mist, only to return tomorrow in another form with another facet taken away.

Making plans for my future, however short and limited it will be, is not appealing at all; again, making the decision whether to stay in this land of changing climates, or returning to the desert to see if I can put down roots once again. Maybe that is the key — I have no roots, nothing to bind me to this place. Yes, I have family that is scattered across the United States. Infrequent contact at best, predominately when I reach out to them. I have grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and a sister who also provides infrequent contact. This same pattern seems to repeat itself with friends.

What is the fault, where is the fault, and who is at fault with this continuing pattern of interaction? I have felt that this is somehow derived from my lack of positive parenting skills when the children were home. As a mother, I never directly involved myself in their lives. Yes, I put on quite the public show of a ‘good mother’, but when that door closed with all of ‘them and that’ solidly shut on the outside, that persona dropped, and I returned to that closed off shell of a mom. Sending a child away, hoping for a different life for him, but neglecting to see or recognize the feeling of abandonment he would suffer, eluded me as much as this feeling about something…perhaps the Karma Wheel has turned, and I am unable to utilize the brakes and stop this. Stop this now in its slowly onward moving path.

Pick a simile: at a crossroads or light at the end of the tunnel or the horse before the cart, it does not matter, any and all are applicable to this current statis.

How to turn this around, how to figure this all out, how to continually move forward, never deviating, never stopping, never questioning. Maybe, just maybe, I should take a roadside sobriety test. If I can’t walk in a straight line, then I should go wherever and whenever this crooked path seems to go. Jig to the left for a bit, then jog to the right, stand up, sit down, and what? Fight? Go for the Passive/Aggressive behavior? Give In? Give Up? Quit?

I recently saw a picture of an angry chimpanzee holding a revolver. Caption read: “If you are gonna fight, fight like you are the third monkey in the line, and, Brother, it is beginning to rain.” Could that be my stumbling block, I can’t see past, or through the rain clouds? I am oblivious to the rain, another obstacle, another stumbling block, another diversion.

Death is not always about the physical…sneaky little bastard that it is…slow growing like a cancer…not having the ability to medicate it away…just death: mentally, physically, and certainly emotionally. Perhaps…