Monday, October 21, 2013

Sarah, how could you be so heartless?

I've had something on my mind lately. When I say "lately" I mean, for a good while and consistently. Every time I think about getting around to saying it something happens in the personal life of someone I know that would brand me as insensitive if I were to say it. The truth of the matter is...no matter when I say it I am likely to be branded as insensitive.

Then, something else came across my mind and the two subjects kind of overlap from time to time. I figured I'd knock them both out at once. I'm going to be insensitive and sentimental all in the same post. Try to bear with me, as I am not quite sure yet how this will work out.


I've always been free of the burden of feeling "Aww, that's so sad..." I have also always been adaptable if nothing else. When going through hard times outsiders would be given no clues. I was an honor student with unfaltering grades. My moods were steady. And I never talked to anyone about what troubled me. Looking back at my youth the most emotion I think I ever showed anyone was when my grandmother was in the hospital dying and they refused to let me go see her. I was furious. But, when her funeral came I skipped and played at the graveyard.

Don't get me wrong, I miss her, it's just... We're all born dying. Death is promised to everyone and everything that lives. In fact, it really is the only promise you can count on. I go to funerals and everyone is always so sad. I can never figure out why and struggle to follow the social protocols to console them.

In my adult life I had a dog that died suddenly. He was young and I had many years left to be with him. I felt robbed. His breed can live up towards 17 years and yet he died at the ripe old age of 2. I had never lost a pet like that before. On top of that I had dumped every emotion I had about not being able to have another baby into that dog. When he died he took with him that baby I'd never have.

Since then I have become quite immuned to those feelings. It only ever takes me one time of going through something for my inner-self to develop some coping mechanism against it. This does bother me from time to time. I face something that I know is suppose to be sad, but I don't cry, I can't cry, and I wonder...does this make me heartless? The truth is, I'm always too sensible for most feelings.

Recently while driving down the highway I saw a car in the emergency lane, it was slightly sticking out into the next lane. We were in the next lane over. I expected the car that was in the lane between us and them to move over in front of us to go around the car that was partially sticking out into their lane. The car never moved. At the very last minute when you could no longer see space between the two cars the one in the lane next to us suddenly swerved and smashed their passenger side into the other car. It sent them across the highway. They slid down the passenger side of our car as my husband tried desperately to avoid them.

The entire time I stared out the passenger window, watching every moment of it unfold. I felt everything. And all I could do was scream as I envisioned what would be next. Afterall, I had been in an accident at these speeds before, and I was lucky to live through it. When we came to a stop I was a shaking mess. My husband ran back to check on the people who slammed into the other car. I became Miss Practical, again. There were things that needed to be done. I called 911, reported the accident, told them what happened, gave a description of where we were, and then waited for the cops to show up and talked to them once they were there.

I was the same way in my own accident. There were phone calls that needed to be made. Kids that needed arrangements made for them. I was very likely bleeding to death, but I had things I had to do before I could die. Always taking care of business...

I worry about my health. More than anyone knows. My husband and I talk to each other about everything. If you say something to me, he knows it. If you say something to him, I know it. That's just how we are. I don't burden him however with the things that plague my mind. Especially when it comes to my health. We're all born dying, remember.

My whole life has been plagued with health problems. I was born with an extremely rare blood disease that almost killed me within a week of being born. Then they discovered I had a heart condition. Then I had the most normal thing go wrong and had to have my tonsils removed. Then cancer. Cancer took up ten years of my life, and resulted in me having to have a hysterectomy. And because life wasn't throwing enough life or death curves at me, I rolled my car at about 75mph. I have a lot of family history of health problems. The odds aren't in my favor to die pleasantly in my sleep at an old age.

That doesn't bother me. I'm ok with dying. I've had a lot of experience with it. The other day I told my husband that I only wanted to live long enough that my Ex couldn't take Tyler away from him, and short enough that I wouldn't have to live a day without him. Let me tell you why.

I wish I could say that I don't want to live a single day longer than my husband because I'd be so devastated that I don't think I could go on. That I'd lay in bed day after day feeling like I couldn't breathe. That I'd cry until I stripped my face bare. But...what I fear most is, life would go on. I wouldn't cry. I'd be repulsed by people trying to hug and comfort me. I would most certainly be pained beyond belief on the inside, but on the outside...life would go on. What kind of monster wouldn't weep for the loss of their love?

The only redeeming factor I can find is the fact that my husband is the same way. Yesterday in a text he told me: "Keep in mind, we are all on borrowed time. Just because I don't have health problems doesn't mean I'll outlive you. Life is anything if unpredictable and thinking you know what the future will hold is almost certain to make you look foolish." I read that and thought, 'Ugh, why does he have to go and be all smart on me?!'

This brings me to my most recent thoughts. So often in life things happen and we think things like, "I gave him the best years of my life and...", "I've wasted the best years of my life..." or something similar. I too have thought such things. That I wish I had found my husband sooner. I wish I could have given him more of my better years, as if youth equates to better. Whereas I may have had better years if I had found him sooner, the truth be told that those years as they were are not my better years.

I have given him some of the best years of my life, and will continue to do so as time does what it does best, march on. These are the best years of my life, and I have saved them all for him. Life, come what may, I will do the best that I can with the time that we have. And if the day comes that I have to face a day without him, I hope I can do it with courage and without shame, because he never thought I was heartless. It's about time that I stopped thinking that I am.