Hurricane Irma

at the end...

Someone I cared about and knew for several decades died unexpectedly last week. I was fortunate because they were in the hospital for a few days and I got to comfort them before they breathed their last. I'd never done something like that before, and that has made a significant impact on me. It has me asking what is the point of life? What is the point of some of the choices we make? I know that the best choices are made in the moment, more than half thought out one, or rolling dice. I feel so out of sorts with this death. It is an end of an era as it were. It means the end of many things I had grown accustomed to. It seems that 2017 has been filled with such experiences. I have been shaken from my comfort zones in very seismic ways. Its as though I was not aware that certain parts of my experience was gathering dust. The hardest thing has been the dis-orientation that I have experienced. Although, I know that I have that to do what I do next, which is contemplate what it means to me. In this instant, there is no going back. Everything has now changed. It is not that I don't honor change, it is that this experience opens up what I have to consider in the next few years, starting now. Life has proven itself to be so fleeting. I have all of these memories of talks, and dinners, and jokes and serious issues poured out over the phone. Nothing is promised. Nothing. It may be too early to try to find answers for myself, as, as I write I see how raw all of this still is for me. What is the point of all of this upheaval? Is it preparing me for the things I have stated I desire for so very long now? Is it that the only way forward is through such trial? Do I dare look at these things that way? Suppose that they are for the best and are actually godsends? Who is to know? One moment your talking to someone and the next they may be in the hospital or at deaths door. The uncertainty is challenging. To me, things have speeded up, if I am to ask myself what this death teaches me. Things have speeded up. I am unsure about my very existence, how much time do I have to do the things I want to do? My attitude has to change? If I complemented my creativity, I now have to pitch my skills out of the ballpark. If I felt I had plans for the next year, two, three, five, eight, ten, fifteen, twenty and so on, I need to think even better and ballsier than that! If I desire to have good investments, I have to be more aggressive about it. If I desire love,I have to go after it. I'm hurting, hurting about this death, and I'm saying to myself that I have to make my life count more than ever, to honor that death. Yet again, someone I love spent their last months in pain. They didn't spend it as they wanted to. That's hard for me to take. WHat's more, these shake ups confuse me, as if I am not confused enough most of the time. I find that things that I dismiss out of hand, I now must take a look at them. I find also that my logic is not the only thing I can rely upon any more, as exclusive as I would like to, and that makes me a bit uncomfortable. I don't think that my instinct is working as well as it should, but then, I am not sure that its not for some things, I am spot on. I am thus,conscious of what I feel in the moment. I am uber observant. I listen. I slow my reaction down. I speak less. My mind races at night. I go back and forth about some issues and try to see what I understand certain things to be now. I take my emotional temperature often, and I try my best to be honest with myself. It is a process, and I am indeed a work.