Time, I Hate You

Sincerely, Me.

My biggest foe, my worst enemy. No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to beat you. You take away everything, and bring me, everything. I run away from you, and to you. No matter how fast I move, I cannot escape your grip. Even when I try to let you go, you're still there. Like an old lover, you know me so well. Even as free as I try to be, I cannot get away from your constraints. Time, I hate you. 

There it is. 

I cannot seem to get away from it. It's all around us, and yet I cannot seem to get enough of it. Perplexing. Sometimes it takes forever to get here, and other times, it moves too fast. I have too much to do, and never enough time to do it in. 

As I get older, I find that I have become more religious. If you know me well, that statement must seem odd. I have no real religious leaning one way or another. I guess I would call myself spiritual. I used to identify more as an agnostic, but as I grow, I realize I want to believe. I want to believe there is more than this, and that when I depart this realm, I want to keep moving forward. Is this true? I don't know, but I want to believe that it is. 

I have become fixated on death and time lately. Having an ill child, and an ill parent will do that to you. My mother died when I was younger, not a child per say, but not really an adult either. She passed well before a mother should, and it shocked me. We didn't really expect it and I've never really recovered either.

In all fairness, she was ill for a long time, and as the doctors kept telling us, she was around a lot longer than they ever expected. We should have felt fortunate that she lasted as long as she did, but we didn't. We felt robbed. We felt like she was taken at the wrong time. All of the times that she was physically ill, and we thought that she might pass, she pulled through. And then it happened. She had a heart attack. At a hospital. In a waiting room. Waiting to see a doctor. 

She was feeling just fine, and talking to my father, then she fell asleep as she often would when immobilized for any amount of time. She was waiting to see the doctor for a routine check up. She fell asleep sitting there waiting. When her name was called, my father couldn't get her to awaken. She died in her sleep, just the way that she wanted to go. I guess I find solace in that request. 

She died almost exactly 1 week after my youngest son was born, and 1 week before Mother's day. It was a rough few weeks to say the least. 

And here we are now, almost a decade later, and sometimes it feels like it just happened. 

My father is ill, and has been for years. My youngest son is ill and has been his entire life. I'm not ready for this. I don't want to be ready for this. Right now my child is very sick. The doctors aren't quite positive what is causing it, but they have him on medication they are hoping works. If it doesn't we're going to have to admit him to the hospital. What does that mean? We aren't sure, and the doctor didn't give us an answer. I'm assuming that's not the best of signs. 

We know that at some point he is going to need a transplant. After the transplant his life will change, and for the better. But that's if it takes and all goes according to plan. At our first few visits, the doctor estimated that he'd need the transplant probably sometime around his 20's, then the next few visits, the expectancy was lowered to his mid teens, and then to his lower teens, maybe around 10 or 11. Now, we're at a stage where the doctor just says "we'll keep an eye on it." The last time we seen him because he became sick, the doctor was worried that we were already to a point where we needed to "talk about our options." But thankfully, he pulled through and we never needed to "talk about our options."

My father is in the same boat. He has the same thing that my son has, it's a genetic disease. I more than likely have it as well, but I haven't gotten tested and have not showed any signs of it. I don't want to know right now. I know the rhetoric about knowing is better, but is it really? If you know, doesn't it become part of your life, part of who you are, how you identify yourself? I already have enough physical problems, I don't want to add 1 more to the list. 

The dreams have started again. I can't seem to get away from them. They always end the same way, my son doesn't make it after the operation. I'm afraid to go to sleep at night because I don't want to face the fear and the shock and the panic that comes with these dreams. I don't want to feel terrified, out of control, afraid that I cannot do something to change it. I'm the rock in my family when everything turns to shit. I'm the one every turns to for answers and help getting through tough situations. What happens when the rock finally crumbles and falls apart?

That leads me to why I am fixated on death and time. They go hand in hand don't they? Like some kind of macabre lovers. One always chasing after the other. One care free, and the other full of purpose. One always passing you by in a hurry while you wait for the inevitable follow up of the other. The difficulty that comes with wrapping your mind around one, but cannot stop thinking about the other.

Time, I hate you. Death, fuck you.
Sincerely,
Me