A few diary posts from the last few days…
July 7-8 – Help kid be best kid that kid can be
Sometimes I think that people have children just to give them something to do. Because after a certain age, it’s hard to think of how to stay busy. So you pop out a kid to keep your calendar full. Single and without children, I often find myself thinking, what should I do tonight, or, what should I do this weekend? And I’m gripped by near paralysis, because my options are too numerous to decide. This is not sarcasm.
But with children, those decisions are made for you. Feed kid. Change kid. Entertain kid. Take kid to sports. Keep kid alive. Help kid be best kid that kid can be. I imagine that with children, there is always something driving you forward, a kind of purpose, for lack of a better word, though at times it must feel like madness. Whereas I often do things aimlessly, and what feels like pointlessly. I read a book for hours. I go fishing. I take vacations where and when I want. But what will I leave behind except no one to feel sorrow and anguish about my death, when it finally comes? Who will stand over my grave and weep?
It doesn’t help that I’m also the youngest of five siblings, and so it’s at least somewhat likely that I’ll be the last of us alive. I can imagine a scenario when my parents will have passed, and my sisters and brother as well, and so it’s just me, with my time coming soon.
And so who will be left to express sorrow? My nieces and nephews? Maybe a tear or two at best between them, but hardly will it be weeping. After all, when an uncle dies, do you even go to the funeral? Maybe if he was a cool uncle and the funeral isn’t too far away, but I fear I am a mediocre uncle, and so some nieces and nephews may come to my funeral, but if one or another has bowling league or something equally pressing, I can see them skipping it. Still, whatever inheritance I leave behind will be theirs, so perhaps I could tweak my will to say that only those who show up to my funeral get to split what money there is. Those who go bowling get my hefty collection of silver bars, which they will soon find are only polished lead.
July 8-9 – Oh, the power of positive thinking
I was at the gym exercising tonight, and in the middle of a bench press rep with some relatively heavy weight I thought to myself, what is the point of this? I was halfway through the rep and was already struggling a bit, and then I just stalled out, the weight hovering halfway between my chest and the rack. No one around, the entire floor of the gym empty. Should I set it down on my neck? Would my head pop off like a thumb to a dandelion?
It wasn’t even that I couldn’t lift it. It was just that I was suddenly, existentially exhausted. My question was simultaneously, what is the point of exercising several days per week for many years, and also, what is the point of all of this? Of any of it? Of being alive? Honestly, I’ve had a really rough week. But then I shoved these thoughts aside and pushed and finished that rep and got a little mad and did a few more if only to remind myself of the power of positive thinking. Oh, the power of positive thinking.
Usually a good workout gets me out of my funk but I just can’t get out from under it the last few days*. The sun, which I usually love to see, seems no longer golden, the light a dull gray, and the colors of the flowers in my yard and on boulevards have not lately called out to me. An old high school friend posted on Facebook today that her son had killed himself. What can you ever do or say to help in that situation? “I am sorry for your loss.” There’s nothing. Nothing. You get up and face the twisted world and try, at least, not to make it worse.
*Update: I woke up today, July 10, and I am out of my funk. I don’t post everything I write here but thought I would post a little window into my recurring feelings of doom and how sad living and love can be in this human life. And also a reminder to hang on. Things go up, things come down. They turn around. Halfway through my life I know this but I did not always know this. So stay for the times between the times, the moments of humor and happiness and even, occasionally, joy. Keep powering through until the sun feels warm again. Until the flowers look like they are saying hello. Hello.
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