When my mother began to die, I became more observant of everyone else's frailties, in the most corporal sense. But my new sensitivity has been overtaken by actual events, in which people close to me are breaking down, expiring, and cracking their lips faster than i can even take it in. I know that when you reach your senior years, you become accustomed to friends dying. And AIDS made a younger generation an example of that in the 80s. But I wasn't prepared for something else that's happening in middle age, which is that a lot of my friends are getting their ticket punched, and it's not pretty.
We have a friend recuperating at our house, because he got drunk, fell in a ditch and broke his shoulder over the weekend. Now you may think, "what a fool," ( and that's exactly what he's thinking) but the guy is a father of two, and has been teh sole support of his family for a decade and is dearly loved by his wife and family. What happened? His family went out of town for two days and he lost his mind.
This evening I get an email from a colleague who says that a mutual friend of ours unexpectedly died three days ago-- she's only ten years older than me.
My sewing teacher broke her foot by simple falling off her clogs. Another friends migraines have cost her her job. My partner's grandma is dying, my dad is scheduled for spine surgery, and and and and and
I remember a Raggedy Ann doll my mom made for me when I was in first grade. The black button eyes were never securely tied on, and they always threatened to completely fall off. They hung on, by yes, a thread. And lately I've been feeling like all the people over 40 in my life are similiarly ill-sewn.
I have lots of political analysis about why various public health crises are unfolding. that isnt' where I feel the strain. i just simply feel OVERWHELMED, like I'm going to stop dead in my tracks and the last thing they'll say about me, is "catatonic." And I feel so impatient with minutia, bureacracy, rules for the sake of rules, boredom, indifference. Yes, i flip between catatonia and "i'm-gonna-have-to-slap-somebody" outrage. I know I'm not unique, but does anyone else possess a wiser mind, a more capable brain to process these disintegrations?
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