A few hours later I'm sitting watching King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard playing at last night's concert in Philadelphia. I had hoped to go but there wasn't time and my mind wouldn't have been into it. This is a serious time and the next few months will be a journey.
But I am no longer on call to watch after them and to make sure my mother doesn't hurt herself trying to help my dad. They want to help each other and are connected. I come from them and I'm here because I want their last days to be the best they can be.
And then I'll live my life. I can feel myself wanting to move on and take a new journey myself. I'm on another break from the newsletter and I find myself being less interested in not being able to express an opinion, not being able to try persuade.
I don't know what the world is becoming but I know what it has been. I know who I want to be and I know I've learned a lot on this journey. I've made tremendous mistakes, mistakes that have led me to become estranged from my own children.
There is a lot of me that would like to go to graduate school or do something in order to spend time writing things I want to write. I know that's not what graduate school is. A better thing might be to focus on the work I have to do to get my newsletter to a new place.
Or something like that.
Twice this month I've stepped away from the newsletter, but even on those days I put some movement toward keeping it going. I'm going to spend the rest of the even watching more of this concert as I can while I type out my thoughts for the day.
What makes being in the room difficult is that my concentration gets broken all of the time. I need to pay attention and be ready for anything. These are the same skills I use to be a journalist, always attentive.
This week I'm having to let that focus go in exchange for another. I wrote about that in the last post. I don't know who is reading these, but there are people who are reading them. Or the bots have found me and some human-killing algorithm is going to duplicate me!
Anyway, now I'm relaxed and I'll be there tomorrow for their 62nd anniversary. This is a difficult time, but it's part of life and I'm ready for what comes. And it may teach me that I do indeed want to live and breathe and succeed and persuade and convince people that there are better ways of existing.
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