Life Sucks

It really does. Take a moment to think about it. Life; the being born and living part, is truly awful. We've been lied to..taught, from the moment we could understand our parents language, that life is wonderful. That all around us are Happy-ever-after-beer commercial moments, just waiting to happen. All we need to do is pick from the ripe bowl of cherries, stop and sniff the flowers and allow the rose colored glasses they force us to wear to color our world perfect. We can just busy ourselves making lemon-aide if things get too annoying.

Its a load of crap..life is hard, very hard..a constant struggle for survival. The only thing that separates us from our primitive ancestors is the fact that we dress for work instead of sharpen our spears for the hunt. By the end of the day, its still all about surviving another 24 hours in a world that would like nothing better than to squash us, eat us, drown us, and use 10,000 other ways to kill us. On top of it all, Life has its accomplices, mostly the guy/gal next to you...how do you know when to fight or flee when the predator looks just like the prey?

When I was 5 years old, they tossed me out into the world, deceived by my elders that the world was a welcoming place waiting just for me, full of adventure and fun..the doors of my safe haven shut closed behind me I was led into a hostile and terrifying environment unknown to me...first day of school. I promptly bawled my eyes out the whole morning and learned my first lesson about life...nobody likes a cry-baby, (I would test that theory out for many more years to come, always coming to the same conclusion). The illusion of that welcoming world was instantly shattered. Id love to say that I quickly learned the art of survival and toughened up..sadly it didn't happen. I cried again the next day, the next week I think even the next month...and got miserably teased for it. I just wanted to stay home, where I was safe with my toys and books..because, you know, life is just waiting out there ready to gobble you up first chance it gets.

It didn't get any better as a grown up. Actually it got worse, well, harder, tougher. And I got meaner and more resilient. School of “hard knocks” alumni here..as are so many out there. I learned lots of survival lessons, mostly, nobody likes a cry-baby. And I survived, 24 hours by 24 hours, I survived and managed to discover that the world was full of beautiful and extraordinary things and Ive been lucky enough to see and experience some of them. And that is its own reward, that and the fact that I live another day to remember them and if lucky, to see/experience something new.

Life sucks..but its not personal. Theres no “why me” equation that enters in to it. Having made it this far I have to say that it seems to me, that people have gotten the idea that life “owes” them something. Not so. We create the world we live in. Life really had nothing to do with it..its too busy trying to kill you to worry about whether you have your entitlements to this or that..Life doesn't care if your offended or feel discriminated against. On the contrary, all the better. The more distracted you are, the easier it is to drop something heavy on you and squash you..or get your pressure so elevated screaming about your rights that you drop dead from a heart attack.

Ive lived long enough now to be back with my toys and books again (call them what you like, just because they are for adults doesn't meant they arnt toys). I like it here, its nice, quiet..safe...because, you know..life is out there waiting to gobble you up, first chance it gets.

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Death as a part of Life

Ive noticed that the older I get, the more I think about death. Curiously, its not my death Im preocupied with, but rather, the death of others, of loved ones, friends, family.  

When I was 20, death was some far-off concept that belonged to distant relatives or very old people. As I grew older, suddenly people I knew, who connected with me in some way or other, started dying. By my 40s the list of people I knew who had died, had grown, as Im sure it does for everyone.  The longer you live the more people you know,first alive, then later, dead.

Now Im 53, going on 54. My own death is a very real posibility, yet Im still more concerned about someone else dying.  I look at my parents, they are in their late 70s and I know that our time together is so much shorter now than when I was a child and it seemed to me that my parents would live forever.

My boyfriend calls me to say he is ill in bed, and suddenly I wonder if his tender words are the last ones Im going to read from him.

I wouldnt call it an obsession..or maybe it is..I dont know, I wonder if others think/feel the same as I do..I have felt the pain in my heart of loosing someone, even though they are still alive.

Its such a curious thing..to think of death.  I never thought about it when I was young. I suppose when one is young life seems eternal, I remember feeling the dragging on of years when I was 15..18 seemed sooooo far away.

Now, it seems that life, anyones life, is over in a wink of an eye.  And Im so sure about that inevitability that it feels like Im just waiting for the "when", having accepted the "will". 

I suppose in a way its good, it certainly has been the best teacher for "staying in the moment".  To live each moment with a loved one as if it were the last, knowing that once that moment is gone it will never return again.

I dont feel that this outlook is morbid.  When I was a child, my grandmother took care of me.  She was then in her 60s and had many friends, inevitably they would die.  Death was a part of life, it was always there, always talked about as something natural and not to be feared.  Yes it was sad, but life is sad sometimes.

Ive never had anyone close to me die.  I dont know how Ill react when my parents die. I just know it will happen, its a fact of life that I have accepted.
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