Gone

It's so strange when people your age die. I mean, everybody dies; it's the inevitable finale to this bizarre ride each of us hops on against our will and we pretend that it's not out there, death, at the very close of the whole strange journey, administering a swift butt-kick into whatever the next phase of consciousness/existence may be. But it is. Out there, I mean. It's always there. Maybe it's written at our birth, imprinted on us. YOU WILL EXPIRE ON XX/XX/XX. SO ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS, SUCKER.

 I just picture my death and the death of anyone close to me as being a big, beautiful, carefully orchestrated event, happening in a big, four-poster bed; we're surrounded by loved ones and cats and aromatherapy candles and we're wearing old-fashioned nightclothes with lace collars (why?), gray hair all wiry and sticking out all over the place, oxygen tube feeding our nostrils last tastes of life-giving air until peacefully, ever so peacefully, we close down and are gone. Gone. That's quite a word. Luckily, I've never had to say a permanent goodbye to anyone who played a major role in my everyday life...I've yet to lose a partner or parent or anyone I'm so attached to I'd go batshit without them. But the other day I found out that someone I used to care very deeply for had died, at the age of freaking 38...two days before his 39th birthday, even...of a heart attack in his mother's house. If that isn't a cruel way to take someone I don't know what is. And I have just been trying to wrap my head around why the hell someone as good and kind as he was didn't get to have that beautiful, ethereal death in the soft white bed with his children's children at his feet telling him to just let go. Why his end came at the age of 38, wearing basketball sneakers and telling his mom he wasn't feeling well and maybe he should go to the hospital.

 His name was Wayne. Our moms taught nursery school together and were good friends. They would fantasize, when we were seventh graders, about us one day getting married and the two of them being able to share grandchildren, and we'd both be like, ugh, gross, because he was stick-skinny with hair like brown cotton candy, braces and huge feet, and I was sweaty, greasy-haired, pot-bellied and wore too much blue eyeliner. But we found each other nonetheless, in our own awkward way, with our mutual disdain for sporty boys who took boxes of NoDoz in math class, and cheerleaders and school dances and parties we never got invited to and somehow these things sort of just cemented us. We became best friends and confidantes and I remember hiding in my closet with the cordless phone at way past 9 pm cutoff for phone calls, whispering about some bullshit with Wayne, that at the time felt like the most important thing in the world.

We fell into an easiness that just worked because we were both such strange, overly sensitive creatures trying to map our way through the dark and deadly waters of junior high school. He had the bluest eyes I'd ever seen, like china, and just as fragile. He had almost transparent skin, he was so fair. I watched Top Gun at his house and we were both like, "This movie is LAME and Tom Cruise seems kind of gay." At one point he thought he was in love with me, as all seventh grade boys are likely to do with a girl who is a friend but isn't a hot girl but also isn't totally ugly or in a wheelchair or looking like the elephant man or is 400 lbs or anything. I remember predictable eye-rolling in science class as a note was passed to me over a bunson burner, and it quoted Run DMC and was supposed to make me laugh but instead I just crumpled it and stuck it in my notebook. I wish I'd kept it.

 Wayne got into an accident when we were in our early 20s. A car accident, I think. A bad one. I think he suffered for a long time after that and had seizures and I remember my mom telling me he'd tried lots of different medications to help him feel better but nothing was really working. I went to see him right after I'd gotten married, dragging along my husband like some sensible new extension of myself, proof that I'd escaped my supposed fate of lonely chubby girl and found someone who could define me. I'm embarrassed that I wasn't able to just be a friend and hold his hand and listen, that I had such a relentless need to prove myself. We talked sporadically over the years and I was always comforted at the way he always seemed to be the same, always waiting for something great to happen, open to whatever life would bring. He got married last year and I think about how happy he must have been, all that he must have been looking forward to. My mom said in the wedding photos hanging by his casket that he looked completely thrilled. I'm sorry his life is over, and that his wife had less than a year to build a world with him. I'm sorry that he never had babies and that his mother had to watch him being put into the ground. I'm sorry that he didn't get to die an old man in a warm bed, half-dreaming of the young man he used to be. I wish he'd met my daughter. I wish we'd gotten to talk more. But in the short time he was here he meant something to me. And I guess that will just have to do.

Losing the Battle, Winning the War

It's easy for me to get into a downward spiral of self-loathing (Why'd I cut my hair all off? How come I look pregnant when I slump over? Do other women have to deal with THIS CALIBER of moustache hair??!!), I have decided to take some advice from my sister. Or rather, her therapist. We women, especially us fucked up girls, are warriors. No, I'm not going to start touting some 1980's self-help bullshit like one of the female characters from "Friends". Rather, I think it's important for me and the legions of women like me, to try and remember our strength. We are tough cookies. We've had to be. We've weathered divorce, breakups, stupid decision-making, heartache, and lots of us are single-handedly trying to balance careers, relationships, and child-rearing in such a crazy, busy, ass-backwards world that we oft times feel like one-armed clowns on unicycles juggling chainsaws. Or maybe I shouldn't speak for everyone. All I can say is I am doing the very best that I can every single day that I'm on this crazy ass rollercoaster. Sometimes I do it well…I get into a freshly-made bed at the end of the day with a book, clean hair, and drift peacefully off to sleep feeling like everything is as it should be. Sometimes I wake up on the couch at 2 am in front of an unfinished project on my laptop, a sticky red-wine drool running off my chin, head pounding a steady reminder that I have to get up in 4 hours and haven't made lunches or set up the goddamned coffee machine. Overall, I think I do a pretty good job. I know I try really hard. It's gonna take a lifetime to get it right, but with each tiny battle I win, I feel like I'm getting a little bit closer.