FROM REALM TO REALM

How much time do any of us get?

I think about this a lot. One, because I’m like that. The topics most people never broach are usually the ones I languish in. The ones I want to talk about constantly.

So Death is a big one for me. I think of death as the inspiration to live truly, to live happily, to live authentically.

In my twenties, when most people I knew were spending money at the bars or on vacations, I was spending my minimal income on therapy, desperately trying not to die. Major depression will do that to you. My depression wasn’t just a deep and pervasive sadness, it came with all the self destructive energy of a typhoon. I’d hitchhike, I’d binge drink, I’d stand on the edge of the abyss and wonder if I was going to jump. I didn’t necessarily want to jump. But the pain was so intense that I desperately wanted a way out of it.

One of the things I tried (to not die) was psychoanalysis. 4 days a week, I laid on a couch and brought it all into the light. I hated every minute of it! I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be spending the money, the time, the energy on it, but I also knew, somewhere deep inside of myself that if I didn’t do it then, I wouldn’t be here to do it later.

So I stayed. For years. When I ended analysis, it wasn’t necessarily because I was better, it was because I was moving. Thank god, I thought. I’m OUT!

In my thirties, I felt like I was finally living the life everyone told me I was supposed to be living. My depression was gone. I got married. I got a “real” job teaching high school science. And, I had my two most amazing babies. It was a decent run. Some of it lasted, some of it didn’t. But none of it was regretted.

In my forties, life continued to get better for me. I wanted to be here. Finally, I wanted to stay. I now had two gorgeous souls who had chosen me to be their mom. ME! I could hardly believe it. I finally had other humans who I knew beyond a doubt were on a team with me. Again, good things came and good things went, and I was happy.

In my late forties, a portal of loss opened. My brother died. Then, my God-sister. Then, my very best friend. I watched life go on after their departures from this realm gutted me. I found it jarring.

All the worries they had stopped mattering in a matter of seconds. Money worries, relationship worries, next step worries. Poof, gone.

It made me think that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t need to be worrying about them in the first place.

Then at 49, I had my second cancer-related surgery. My first was in my twenties when a very early stage cancer was removed from my left breast. The second was on the same breast for another bout, this one further along. And now, still, two years out, I’m still being monitored every three months for new lesions on the right breast. It feel uncomfortable to have to wonder every three months (the only time I let myself consider the implications of it) if this will be the month they tell me it’s time for another surgery. Sometimes I feel like sitting duck. It’s not my favorite feeling, I’ll say that about it.

This past June I lost a very close friend when her breast cancer metastasized throughout her body. She was diagnosed at 49, the same age I was. By 60, she was gone.

I try not to project someone else’s story onto my own life. But this one is hard to avoid.

But, I believe that nothing in this realm is random. My friends’ stories can help me guide my own. All the years I spent being afraid are lessons. Like the Noah Kahan song (that reminds me so much of my brother) says, ‘afraid to live, afraid to die.’ No thanks.

So now I’m in the FUCK IT camp. Not like fuck it I’m ok dying (though, I get it, we are all dying). It’s the fuck it, I’m going to live unabashedly IN MY JOY! Fuck it, we all get a finite time here and I woke up today. I will make the most of it.

So now, I no longer worry that something is fundamentally wrong with me (I’m quite sure there is, and I love that about myself!). Now I wonder how I can bring that weird and wonderful essence of who I am fully into this realm and share it with those who can get something from it— like my children, like my friends, like my clients and my neighbors.

At the end of the month, I turn 52. Imagine that! I actually claim my age in January, so I’ve been living as a 52 year old for months already, I only have three months left before I claim 53! I do that because I love getting older so much! I claim it early because I’m like that. I know death is coming and I WILL enjoy the whole experience of my life until that moment comes. And I will happily share that joy with the world.

So happy October, my lovelies. Let’s make it an amazing month.

Let’s love more.

Let’s love better.

Because today might be the very last day that we GET to.