the end of this blog is the beginning.
and i am learning each day that there is no end.
blame is a slippery thing. i blame nicotine. mom blamed herself and her "distaste for doctors in anything other than a social setting." cancer is incredibly beatable. some is preventable. some is not.
hedge your bets.
 if you smoke...try to quit. it's really hard. the tobacco industry has designed it that way. wear sunscreen. eat vegetables. see your doctor. mom quit smoking over seventeen years ago. early detection saves lives. it could have saved mummy.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

i am aloof.

i did it again tonight. i drove right past a turn i was supposed to take. and not in an unknown place, but on the road i take every night on my way home. i did it on tuesday night coming back home from the oakland airport. i was deep in thought and the next thing i knew, i had no choice but to take the bridge halfway across the bay and make the first possible u-turn at yerba buena/treasure island. that deep thought cost me a $4 toll.

i am an airhead. i forget where i parked my car, i forget what day it is. i am so lost deep inside my own head that, when i snap out of it, i find myself feeling like a sleepwalker who just woke up in the middle of a crowded room.

fortunately, things are so busy at work, that, when i am in the thick of it, i don't fall into my own mind. it's the drives to-and-from, the quiet minutes at home, the times i am waiting in lines. the "in-between" times are the times that i get lost.

inside my head i have sweet memories, and battles with myself, and ask questions that i forgot to ask her. i replay the last few months and second guess myself inside my head. i have flashes of understanding that she is never coming back and get kicked in the gut all over again inside my head.

inside my head, i remember her eyes and the love. i still just remember the end...but there was so much love in those last three months that i still have goodness there.

inside my head, i am aching to ask her how it was, the dying, and if she was scared. and i want to do it over and do it better and make sure she gets a chance to say she is scared instead of being as strong as she was, so i can comfort her the way she always comforted me. she mothered us until her last breath. i want a do-over.

inside my head i rage at god and ask him why he took her so damn early. i feel really ripped off inside my head.

and, when i snap out of it, i still feel really ripped off.

i feel both lucky and ripped off at the same time. she was living and dying at the same time. i am fine and i am broken at the same time. it is trippy.

it trips me. and when i fall, i fall into my own head.
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