Death: It Happens

I think about death. A lot.

I haven't always been that way.

As a child I would think about it when we talked about Jesus, in school or home. When you are about 6 or 7 and learn that there was a person who sacrificed himself for you, even though they didn't know you or even about your existence, it makes you think about it.

But when you're 6 or 7, death to you is a concept, a notion, an idea. It's something that only happens to very, very old people, or very special people for some strange reason. It is distant. It does not have to do with me. Not now.

I used to hold my breath to see what it would be like to be "dead". What does it feel like to stop living? What did Jesus feel like? (Yeah, I was a bit devoted in my Catholic upbringing.)

The thoughts were fleeting, as only they can be at that age. It was a mere curiosity and then it was gone.

Years go by.

Teens feel invincible. They go off and do crazy things because they feel death can't happen to them.

This is a stereotype. It wasn't me.

I purposely avoided things to avoid death. I didn't smoke, or try drugs of any kind. I was the goodie-goodie kid. As I got older, I never let anyone drink and drive me anywhere. I was the designated driver. I knew death could happen to anyone, but it was unlikely that it would happen to me. Not now.

When I was 27 one of my best friends in the whole world died. Suddenly and without warning, his heart failed and he was gone. His sister was the one who called to tell us. To this day I don't know how she did it. To this day I feel his absence. Death can now happen at any time, to anyone of us. Hopefully not now.

My thirties brought on a new level of death thoughts. My husband and I now had three children and they were still very young. My family often talked to me about my weight and how it wasn't healthy. My husband mentioned that he wanted me around for a long time, so he wanted me to be healthy. Health versus death. Something new that entered my brain. With every year that passed, death was creeping closer. It is, after all, inevitable. It is going to happen some day.

The panicked thoughts would creep into my mind, ready to paralyze me. Then I thought of something. My children are small. They need me. I need to be here for them. I will be here for them. I am not going to die in my 30's. Not yet. It is too important for me to be here. Raising my children is my purpose here.

Paralyzing death went quietly to a place far back in the recesses of my mind. To haunt me another time.

I can't pinpoint the exact day or moment, but some time around 39 or 40 the death thoughts visited again. This time with a new sense of purpose. With a whole new sense of fear to share with me.

It's not that something dramatic happened to me. It wasn't one thing that sent death spiraling through my head. It was simply life happening. Life happens so consistently, it's sometimes hard to keep up.

Life goes on and people pass on. People who have lived good, long lives. They made it to a nice old age and died of natural causes. They've left us to move up the ladder of life.

Now, in my 40's, I have moved up a good few rungs of that ladder. I see others around me move up as well. Some are very close to the top. Death is welcoming them in like a long, lost friend.

Death visits my thoughts now like an annoying creature. He's noisy and loud and colorful. Too much so for my comfort. he comes into my head and stays for too long. He likes to make my heart pound, palms sweat and thoughts race. It's like he's mocking me by enhancing the things he will one day take away. I feel the life in me more clearly in those moments. I feel how I don't know what I will do without them. I panic. He stays and parties for a while, thinking it's all fun and games.

I've learned to push him away. I've learned to distract myself to quiet him. Not now.

I welcome distractions like I never have before. I like keeping my head busy, louder than death partying in the not-so-back of my mind.

Why does he paralyze me so? Does he do that to everyone?

Not now, please. Shhh.

I know it has to happen. I just hope that it is easier than it seems. The piece of wisdom I will take with me this decade is from my father; we are always afraid of the unknown. He is right. I am always afraid of what I don't know. Yet that hasn't stopped me from doing things I don't know.

Death will be one of those things. I will rise up to shake hands with him one day. Even though afraid of what I don't know, I will be confident that I will follow the millions of others who have done it and I will make it through.

Just not now, thanks.

Thoughts At the Kitchen Sink

If you could spend a day in my body

You would believe.

I have aches and pains

Every day.

I push through it most of the time.

If you could spend a day in my body

You would see.

Beauty is everywhere

You need only look.

My eyes are my greatest gift.

If you could spend a day in my body

You might be surprised.

My inner thoughts are true.

My personality is real.

I am genuine.

If you could spend a day in my body

You would know.

I know I am judged by the way I look

Not what is inside, to some.

What is inside is so much more

Than what you see on the surface.

If you could spend a day in my body

Then I could spend a day in yours.

Then there would be complete and total understanding.

Fleeting Thoughts

Sometimes I have really great thoughts. They come into my head when my brain is wandering, unoccupied. The problem is, they are often fleeting thoughts. Usually I am by myself, so I don’t get a chance to share these thoughts with anyone. Occasionally I will be with someone, usually one of my kids, and depending on which one (as there is a 9 year age range between them), I may tell them my thought or not.

When I share thoughts with my daughter (the oldest), she tells me often that I am great, terrific, a goddess. (No joke, she calls me a goddess about once a week. Of course, I love her!) “You should share your thoughts on You Tube, or blog or something!” She tells me in her excitement.

So here I am, blogging. About what, I have no idea. The thoughts come and go quickly. All I can remember is that they were good. They put together parts of life for me. Help me reason things out: problems, fears, solutions. They give me a grand scheme theory, to help me go through my every day life with some meaning, some purpose.

Perhaps that’s why they are so brief. Because once I make sense of them, they go to the back of the line, so to speak. Being in my 40’s, that line is pretty long. It’s hard to see to the end of it sometimes. I forget who’s back there. Things get lost.

Where was I? Oh yes, fleeting thoughts. Sometimes, if I am able, I will make a note of them. That is rare. Usually I am driving in my car, or taking a shower, or doing the dishes, or laundry. It’s when my mind is bored, because my body is busy. I wish I could jot them all down and see later on if they were really as good as I thought. I’ve taken to keeping a notebook and pencil by my bed, just in case. Some weird dreams have happened, but I’m not sure those are for blogging about. I haven’t decided what to do about those.

Fleeting thoughts…I am glad for them, even if they do leave a bit too soon.

Shower Thoughts: When the Past Sneaks Up On You

Sometimes when I’m in the shower, my mind wanders to the past. Some past event in my life that for some reason caused me stress or sadness. I hate it when my mind wanders here. Who wants to find stressful things to think about?

Sometimes I let it play out. Maybe for some reason there was something my mind needed to work on with this memory. Sometimes I just get mad at my brain and yell at it and then think of something else on purpose. Either way, I never seem to understand why my mind wandered there to begin with.

Perhaps I was talking about a person, or a place, or a time recently, and it made my mind come up with this event. Maybe there was a song on the radio that brought my brain to these moments. I don’t think I shall ever truly know.

Lately I find that if I let it play out, it fizzles and ends up down the drain with the suds. As much as I may not like them sneaking up on me, something in my brain feels satisfied with playing it until the end. Maybe I just didn't have the energy to fight it off this time.

Mostly I think I just don’t like the sneak attack.

Shower Thoughts - Happiness

The other day in the shower, I thought of happiness. How some people are very happy, and others are not. I have given the whole why-is-this-so question a great deal of thought in and out of the shower.

One time I saw a program on it that said happiness is in our genes. We are genetically programmed to only be a certain degree of happy through our lives. That thought depressed me. So, you mean, all the people in the world who are depressed on a regular basis, don’t have a choice in the matter? They were programmed to be that way? No matter what they do? Ick. And crap. That really sucks if that is so.

I am lucky I tend to be a happy person. I side on happy about 90% of my day. I get aggravated if I do not find happiness, or someone else takes the wind out of my sails.

But I don’t hold onto it.

I let it go.

Usually by the end of the day I’ve let it go. Sometimes it takes a good night’s sleep, and I wake up like I have amnesia. Everything is better.

Rarely, but it has happened, it takes much longer.

But I let it go.

I don’t know why I am like that. Some people think I am forgetful, or even unthoughtful. I don’t mean to be. I think it is my brain’s way of keeping me happy. Perhaps it is true then. Perhaps I am programmed that way. I really don’t know.

It’s not that I forget all the bad things that happen, but I forget the small ones, the details that make things sad and painful. I know I don’t want to feel sad or pained, and I think over the years my brain developed this way to avoid it.

Thanks brain.

So, am I happy because I want to be, or because I don’t have a choice? Who knows.

But this is all old happiness thoughts. I’ve had all these before. Many times.

With the steam beginning to rise, and my hair (which is too long right now) was finally getting wet all the way through, I thought of happiness again. Swirling around my head like sudsy shampoo.

Okay, some of us are happier than others. So, how do we get along? How does someone who is happy most of the time get along with someone who is not? Do they get along at all? Are not so happy people attracted to happy people or vise versa? Are we meant to mix it up for the yin and yang of life?

I find it interesting how couples stay together, and how they don’t. I wondered, in the shower, if their happiness levels are a factor? If you take two people, with two different levels of happiness, and look at their relationship, I bet you could tell why they run into problems.

Let’s take the gift giving holidays. If someone who is not so happy does something for their significant other on their own level of happiness, it may seem like they weren’t really trying to the other person who has a higher level of happiness, and therefore, would be willing to do more. Yet both feel as if they’ve done the same amount for the other.

Our holidays are filled with so much pressure to make a loved one happy by buying something. If we buy gifts based on our own happiness for someone with different happiness, there is going to be a noticeable difference there. But if everyone took into account that difference, they all might be able to avoid the crazy expectations of these gift giving holidays.

If we have no expectations, then we have no disappointment. If you get a gift, no matter the size or cost, how lovely! If you didn’t expect anything. If you don’t get a gift at all, then it’s just another day, and maybe that’s okay too. After all, you didn’t expect anything.

But more than expectation, let’s try to understand each other on a deeper level. Try to take things from each other’s perspective. Greater understanding leads to greater relationships.

Fuzzy shower thoughts are faded already.

Shower Thoughts

One of my best places to have crazy thoughts is in the shower.

Perhaps it is the hot water trickling everywhere, and the steam rising to clear my head.

Perhaps it is the heavenly scent of soaps, rich with moisturizers and natural oils and bubbles that allow my head to wander freely.

Perhaps it is just having enough time alone to have a complete thought. About anything.

I believe it is the combination of these things.

Sometimes I am working out a problem going on in my life. Trying to find the best solution, or the cause of it all, or what my part in it shall be.

Sometimes I have a song stuck in my head which dominates most of the shower, but still allows me to have funny thoughts in the background.

Sometimes, sometimes, I just wander through my brain, and something wonderful happens.

Those are my favorite shower thoughts. The ones where I feel like I put some part of the meaning of life together in a way that makes me completely happy. I come out of the shower a little different than before. Cleaner yes, but also cleansed.