Checks and Balances – Saying Goodbye

I know this entry is going to sound pretty morbid, and probably over-dramatic, but as my surgery date approaches I feel the need to, “wrap things up”. I am pretty positive that this is a mental and emotional process that everyone having a major surgery goes through. There is a certain amount of a fatal, impending doom kind of feeling. People die during and shortly after this surgery. It is risky. With my circulation issues I could have a deadly blood clot, etc, etc, etc. I feel like I need to say goodbye to people that I care about “just in case”, and I started that process today. Don’t get me wrong, I am not so dramatic as to call people up and say “Hey, I could DIE”, but I think that it is necessary to, in my own way, find a way to give people closure on our relationship in case the worst happens. I started with an easy one today – an email that the person may or may not read. The harder ones I am saving for later.

The list of people I care about is sadly not a very long one. Years of severe depression and an abusive marriage isolated me from most people. I don’t think that I really ever learned how to make friends as an adult. I had a lot of close friends as a teenager, but at that age your friends are your life. As an adult friends simply can’t be that; people have families and careers – they can’t spend the night over at your house 4/7 days a week. Because of my quick transformation from 17 year old with active social life to an 18 year old who was not allowed to leave her home without strict permission, I think I missed out on a transitional period in life. Still, I find myself clinging to the idea of having a girlfriend that I can gossip and giggle with, or a beautiful artist friend to lie in bed and draw with. It’s hard to let go of the past, perhaps doubly so when your present is bleak; your future questionable.

So, here I stand on the “precipice of change” wondering, if on the off-chance this surgery is meant to be my end, did I live a life worth living? Will anyone remember me? Did I do enough? Did my life – all of the struggles, the pain, the trauma – did it mean anything? Was I a good enough friend; did I love my husband enough? The answer, in my heart to all of these, is a solid no. The kind of no that rings infinite like the eternity that I now face and fear. That no is what scares me the most. The more life lessons I learn; the more I learn about the world, the more sure I am that when we die there is a vast nothingness. The concept of a meaningful, purposeful life is a construct of our own creation – and that thought is terrifying. There is no supreme justice in the afterlife; there is no doting father waiting to finally take our tortured and world-weary souls into his arms; there is no final rest – there is nothing. We are not stardust, we are dark matter.  All we have is here and now, and I have lived my life in a state of waiting for tomorrow to come.

And so, my goal and my vow is this – if I survive this surgery, if I somehow drag myself out of this hole that I have created for myself, I will fight for each day like it is my last. I will live in the here and in the now. I will stop waiting for or expecting some magical cosmic justice to save me and I will save myself because in the end, that’s really all I have. I will be the best wife that I can be and I will be worthy of the unconditional love my husband has given me. I will live a life worth living – to me, if not to anyone else.