Abhyasa

These days when I think about death, I pull out my notebook and spill my guts.  I don't want to fill this space with the same plagued soul that lived elsewhere, even if I'm still the same plagued soul.  I am trying to make this about something else, so I reserve that obsessive, jaded part of myself for the black covered notebook and for ink, which I've always felt is the most angst-y way to write.  It bleeds, afterall.

But whether I want to carry it with me or not, that part is still there, confronting me.

Last night I bought How to Live, a biography on Montaigne and the first chapter is about his own philosophical questions about death;  He lived a fearful life for years based on his experiences with loved ones meeting their unexpected ends, until his own near-death experience caused him to quit his job and surrender his life to writing.  He wrote in extreme detail the way everything felt, including drifting away from the earth.

There's this part in the first chapter where he's quoted as saying death isn't something you have to face, for you are already long gone by the time it gets there.

I can only hope my fear evolves the way it evolved for him, sans the almost dying part. It's hard sometimes not to envy the truly alone; whereas all life is painful, they never have to experience losing loved ones, but that is one of the universal struggles - tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all....

We are all sick around here and that's what's spawned this bout of anxiety.  First it was me in the middle of the night with a sore throat and chills so bad I had to sit in a hot bath and focus very hard on calming down.  Then it was Colt, who's sickness resulted in mental fades and bouts of anger.  Now it's little Lane, who has this nasty cough- and with every heady issue we've faced this last week I find more and more reasons to be terrified, even through the reassurance of doctors, even through my own mantras.  I don't want to be terrified, but what is the use of willing anything into fruition when you cannot change it at it's core?

Having Lane has already been like a mirror and he's not even mirroring us yet.  I can see myself in a different way with my diet and stress and attitude and lifestyle.  I feel like I'm watching everything I do with a critical eye:

Is this serving me?  Is this serving anyone?

I have no control over things like sickness or the future or the universe.  

The only control I have is how I choose to respond.