... for me, is full of strangeness. At some moments, I feel extremely restless, while completely serene in others. At the same time, I feel acutely that I am an alien in unfamiliar territory. It's like one of my dreams, where everything seems the same but is painted a different color; every thing feels backwards and inside out; everything smells different, tastes different, looks different but I'm somehow still able to identify the world for what it is. Yes, this is still the world. Yes, I am still Shari. I'm falling between what has passed and what hasn't happened yet, dancing between the life of yesterday and the surrender of tomorrow. I'm a stranger in the bitterly uncomfortable transitory present.
Sitting with my dad in chemotherapy today was a journey into this very weird plane of existence. Outside the hospital window, a beautiful urban sprawl beneath blue sky and soft heat. Inside, a man being eaten alive by his own mutated cells. Outside, a billboard reads, "1 in 3 children born today will live to be 100." Inside, a 63 year old life veteran, teeters between mania and orneriness because of the breakthrough pain that makes living almost unbearable, because he's been cheated by something he can't name.
I feel so irritable, so imperfect, and so damn uncomfortable, all the time, my own grace and ugliness underneath a self-imposed microscope. Seemingly everything in existence - themes and objects and emotions - is in constant juxtaposition in front of me. Everything is either living or dying. People are either in the throes of euphoria or in the depths of depression while I'm in grey limbo. That's the lense of my world these days. Everything though, seems to stand in opposition to my dad. I see what he sees on one side of a boldly delineated line, which is the potential, opportunity, hope, and wonder of unlived years. Today, dad is on the other side of that line.
The me I know well is disappearing. I wonder how this painful transition will birth me into my tomorrow. I have no idea. There is no instruction manual on how to lose someone you love. Anything and everything is a possibility. And somehow I have to let the river run its course knowing I will come out on the other end, not quite different, but not quite the same.
