It's Different in the Night

Whoever said, “Life can change on a dime” had the right concept. Or maybe it was “Life can change in a second.” Or maybe the words were more like “Change is inevitable” or “Without change, there is no life.”

I've known, intellectually, when we get older, we can get sick. We can break bones or lose hair. Disease processes are around so we have something to die from. I just never thought about any of it in relationship to my life, my world. Now my husband and I are faced with the reality of this intellectual concept. See how calm I can be when I write this all slowly in my notebook? I can pick and choose my words in an attempt to distance myself from their reality. It's early morning, the birds are chirping; the air is fresh. I'm calm here.

Last night was a different story. In the darkness, anger bubbled. Made me sick around my heart, squeezing my vital organ with such pressure I had to get up from our shared bed and find solace screaming onto the pillows on the couch. The anger knew no bounds. It took in the Universe, AMA, my husband's stubbornness, the government, the oil spill, the cancer, anything and everything was targeted until I felt spent.

“Move your emotions through your being,” a counselor friend suggested. “Feel them all so you don't hold on to them and get sick yourself.” Eventually, after a Tylenol for the headache I'd brought on with my rant, the edge of sleep crept across my body so I could crawl back to bed, letting the new rhythm of his breathing lull me into hopeful dreamlessness.