Who the hell knows?
It was A’s best friend’s birthday yesterday. I sent him a brief e-mail and birthday wish; he sent me a note back thanking me for remembering. He is the eldest of the amigos now, surpassing A with this birthday. I wonder if that’s weird for him.
And I wonder if I, too, will someday be 56. I don’t take it for granted; my genes say my chances are good, but shit happens. And I wonder if being older than he will throw me, hard, or if, having become a woman of a certain age, I will have the wisdom he did and have a totally different understanding of my life than I do now. I rather hope so. My understanding currently is pretty spotty, and frankly, more than a little embittered.
There are a lot of thoughts swirling in my head these days. That’s always been true, but some of them are a bit…well…dark. But a lot of them are just jumbled, half-thought thoughts and unfinished mental sentences, and I don’t pay them much heed anymore. I used to be a fan of contemplating my own thoughts, thinking about my thinking, cerebral navel-gazing. Now they just seem like a lot of noise, and I can’t put much faith in noise. I have to wait until something substantial shakes out of it and touches me like only truth can.
I have to admit, I don’t remember what my mental processes were like before grief. And not only just basic acuity, focus, memory, and functionality, because those have suffered dramatically. I also don’t recall how mercurial my emotions were or weren’t. As I was taking my walk tonight, and things weren’t hurting too badly, and the sunset was pretty, in that moment, I was feeling pretty good. And I wonder if I’m actually doing better than I know. But how could I know? Last night, my puppies ate the bookmark he gave me, and as I tried to salvage it, my equilibrium disappeared, I cursed my very cute puppies, and the night was tanked and I went to bed with my chest feeling tight.
What I wouldn’t give for just one single solitary assurance about any of the things my mind turns over and over. Just a hint that anything I think is correct, that the direction I’m moving is right, that this is not all for naught and that I truly will understand when I’m done here. I don’t think it’s too much to ask, is it?
We’re all certainly asking it.