My 41st Birthday

The 5th decade of one’s life seems to be the trickiest — similar to Ahmed Nurudin, fictional character created by the famous Yugoslav writer Meša Selimović, I feel that I’m still too young to give up on my dreams, but also too old to continue making them come true. I realize more and more every day that the great majority of my desires will never be fulfilled and that it’s time for me to “settle down”, whatever that’s exactly supposed to mean.

It’s expected from me to be able to pay my bills, cover the basics and more if possible, buy presents, help myself and others around me as much as I can in every possible way.  Others mostly require that I sleep less and less and work more, preferably until I get completely drained and exhausted, utterly immune to my fantasies doomed to remain covered by layers of dust and oblivion. I do understand that modern times need modern slaves, but my artistic vein speaks some very different language — for some reason, it still refuses to be suppressed.

Even though I haven’t had enough time to breathe, let alone do anything else meaningful for myself in the past 10 months, and even though almost everybody told me that I would eventually get used to it, I still haven’t accepted this pointless life I’m leading right now. My soul still aches to express itself, my camera still waits for me to shoot a beautiful photo or two, my pens, pencils and crayons still patiently sit in the same long forgotten corner waiting for me to pick them up and draw at least a couple of lines from time to time. It does seem that certain people cannot be custom tailored to fit the lifestyles imposed by those placed above us in the hierarchy of important achievements, no matter how much pressure you put on them. I still continue to succumb though because right now I have to, but deep down I haven’t forgotten who I am and what makes me happy.

Some people miss me lately and I also miss my true self as well very much, that’s something that I realize more than ever on a day like this one.

I’m 41 today, but my mind simply can’t accept that fact — I don’t know why, but it still lives in our twenties, foolishly waiting for the life to unfold itself in front of us and serve us some magic that has been supposedly kept somewhere in store just for me during all these years I’ve spent on this Planet so far.

I’m 41 today, and my body is on the contrary very well aware of our mutual true age, even more than it’s necessary — very often it actually believes to be quite older than what the birth certificate says every time I look at it.

Somewhere in between the realms of real, potential and desired lies my true age. If only my father were still here or somewhere out there within the boundaries of this dimension to give me the greetings in his unique, special way, everything would be different — alas, that cannot be, time runs only forward and forward again.

If I could ask the Heaven above for a thing or two, I’d beg for good health for me and everybody else, fair amount of fortunate occasions and one blessing — to be able to tell what road to take in order to do what I like when I like from my home, while still being able to make at least some normal, modest living.

Happy 41st birthday, Tanja… and may God listen to some of those most intimate prayers you whisper every night before going to sleep. May the nightmares stop and may there be some peace and clear sky above your head in the days that remain to you on this Earth.

Coming back

It’s been a while, I know. Again. It’s not that I was away doing something extra special or particularly nice, on the contrary, and it’s not that I forgot about the blog or blogging. Many things happened for sure, but even when there were breaks from the routine and when I tried to come up with something to say, I was confronted with that big scary blank page I couldn’t overcome. The roller coaster of negative emotions, illnesses and inability to deal with life as it is now for me affected my expression to a great extent. Whoever said that time alone heals, lies. I’ve also been trying hard to find any kind of paid job I could do online from home… the effort is without success, which is pretty discouraging and disappointing as well in a situation where there isn’t enough income. I tried writing a comeback story with highlights of the events from these past months, but I’m not succeeding in cutting a long story short or making it prettier to make it sound less like a rant. It will take me some more time, but I’ll complete it so that I could have a starting point for this comeback journey in which I’ll have to define a course this blog should take if I want to keep it in a more regular fashion. I want at least something to happily grow again in this sad life of mine filled with stagnation of everything I once did. The only thing I always do, every single day, is overthinking. I’m horrible at doing things in the physical world, while I could think and weave thoughts forever as it seems. There should be at least some use of it, at least there should be the joy of sharing them with the world.

Another comeback, just like another spring emerging out there in the fields, symbolized by these very first shy little daises. Hope.

Someone out there knows us

Cancer stroke once again in my close proximity. Today I learnt that my dad’s best friend’s brother died on Saturday, he had bile cancer – one of the rarest and most lethal forms of this evil disease. He lost his battle in 10 months marked by 6 extremely difficult operations after the diagnose. My dad’s best friend watched my father’s rapid decline and was shocked by the speed at which his life ended, yet he hoped beyond the end of all hopes that some miraculous cure could save his brother and that even the last terrible operation on Thursday family insisted on would make some difference. I perfectly understand that surreal human need to cling to the last shreds of vanishing hope and no matter how much more I know today about cancer, I’m sure that I myself as well would start all over again that battle against all odds if I encountered this evil firsthand one more time. It’s that bargaining part of dealing with loss process, when you try even the most absurd things under the sun to prevent the bad outcome. Even though you know it’s highly unlikely to succeed and that almost everybody else failed, you still push. You still fight. Others failed because they made all sorts of mistakes you imagine to justify your fight. They failed, but you won’t. It’s so profoundly human. Then if miracles don’t happen and things don’t go well, you get into schock. And the dealing with loss starts all over again right from the beginning, from the very start of the denial part.

That’s how my dad’s friend feel now. Fast backward to ten months ago when he first told us about his brother’s issues, he was full of confidence that his brother would be cured. Relatives from everywhere gathered to send all sorts of known and unknown alternative care products and for each new one they included in his therapy dad’s friend would say that if my dad tried it, he would be still alive. It’s so weird when you find youself in the dark tunnel of dealing with an illness without some universally known and definite cure – you want some product to work but you’re still very sceptical, you feel horrible because your family member couldn’t try such product, and in my case you eat yourself alive because you know that your M.D. father would deny trying anything outside allopathic protocol even if you had means to provide it. You go through a turmoil of mixed feelings asking yourself what if this man succeeds while we didn’t manage, does that make me a bad person because I didn’t save my dad? And there comes jealousy, too. That’s such a shameful feeling, to be jealous because someone else out there is alive and you fight every second against it, but it resurfaces again when you least expect it. You know that we’ll all exit this life at one point or another in this or that way, yet you still “fear” that someone else will outsmart the laws of life and stay here forever while you were not smart enough to find the eternal life formula. Totally crazy and quite foolish when you think about it, yet once again extremely human.

I went though all these and many more phases in these past months as I frequently heard news of the state of health of the brother of my dad’s friend. I never met this man, I never even visited the town in Bosnia where he lived, I didn’t even see a single photo so that could at least imagine how he looked like. Nevertheless, over and over again during hundreds of days behind us I asked how he was. I knew where he was, what he did, what was his diet, what were the things he liked, how strong he was and how big hopes he had. I knew so much, although very probably he didn’t even know that I existed and that I followed his battle with so many mixed emotions, praying so much for his life but also for his peace when he was exposed to the last painful procedures. This realization suddenly dawned on me, how probably for each one of us there is at least somebody out there who by chance or through someone else knows about our lives and feelings and how that knowledge often enfolds and stays behind the scene, leaving us completely oblivious of its existence. Just because we don’t know it, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t people out there who hope and pray with us, cheer for us and share our rollercoaster drive in unpredictable circumstances. Depending on circumstances and people involved, this can be a hidden burden or a hidden blessing as some sort of human energy obviously always travels our way. Whatever it is, it’s anyhow one of surprises the miracle of life consists of. I wish you all that only good people have you in their minds and hearts as your and their paths cross for a short time of this planet, may only good energy fly your way. And may the brother of my dad’s friend find his much needed peace till we meet some day. Rest in peace dear man, you were so strong and brave in you battle for life. I know that you were much loved and that you’ll be so much missed. Someone some day will find the cure, I’ll pray for this till the end of my days.

There is time

I wish somebody told me long ago that there wasn’t and isn’t time to waste in this life. I know that all the people I was surrounded by meant the best for me and wanted to protect me, creating the illusion that I have “whole life” in front of me, that if I fail or miss an opportunity I’ll make up for it tomorrow, or next week, month or even a year. I believed in that illusion and “took it easy”, procrastinated, searched and researched mainly the things I liked and that appealed to me, without considering if they had any true practical application in this world. When panic disorder did its best to halt me in every possible way, so many times I retreated in order to suffer less, exchanging freedom for tiny insignificant moments of instant relief. I thought that I was still young and had time to recover to a certain extent and do something more in life.

There is time, I repeated over and over again, till my world tumbled down full force onto my obviously pretty immature head last September when my dad died. I started realizing how many life trains I missed and how many important skills I didn’t learn, foolishly assuming that “dad would do that” or that some things would somehow resolve on their own with time. I subconsciously trusted that opportunities would find me when I need them, and that I wouldn’t have to go searching for them instead. I stopped counting mistakes as their astonishing number fills my soul with tremendous pain.

There wasn’t time, I just didn’t realize it. Now that I do realize it, it completely elapsed. It’s too late. I should have chosen a completely different profession and focused on making some living and something of my life. I should have searched better for a soulmate and created some sort of home of my own on my own or with somebody else. I should have led a better fight against my demons and at least accomplished last spring what I can do today. I should have continued driving after I got the licence almost 15 years ago. What did I do instead? I closed myself in my room, waiting most of the time for panic disorder to pass. Unfortunately, it’s not a virus and it doesn’t last 7 days. My dad passed away sad and disappointed with me. I’m not very sure that he loved me much towards the end the way he used to years ago, and if I’m right I can’t blame him. I’m supposed to know myself best, and even I can’t define myself well any more. I mean well, I would like to help and do some good, but nobody is willing to hire me at 38 for some extra work, I’m “too old”. I can’t help mom much with the bills or drive her somewhere. Procrastion led me to the point at which I don’t only mourn my dad’s death, but also question the sense of my existence. The more time passes, the more I am convinced that it would have been much more fair and just if I died and my dad stayed to live. I feel completely useless, I’m just a burden with all my incompetence and health issues. I can’t even afford to fix the computer that broke down again, so I can’t be consistent even with just blogging. Everything seems to be against me, yet I still defy it – I’m blogging from the phone. Hopefully it won’t break down as well.

So to whomever reads this – don’t procrastinate. Whatever needs to be done, do it now. It’s ok to be sorry when you lose someone, but you don’t need to be sorry for all the wrong choices and missed opportunities as well at those sad moments. No matter what fairytales or other say, don’t believe them – there is no time. No time to lose.

Childhood memories

As I was going to let the dogs out this evening, I discovered a little girl’s hair ornament imitating a string of multicolored pearls with Hello Kitty decoration lying in the corner of the corridor between our and the neighboring apartment. It must have been the neighbor’s little daughter who lost it, so I picked it up and secured it on the wall right in front of their door so that they could see it first thing tomorrow morning.

Maybe she has already forgotten about it, or maybe she was complaining all evening how she lost it and how much she missed it, children get attached to things which you would never believe they could care for that much. Then when they grow up and search for some favorite special memory from the old days, it often happens that if they find it they end up being disappointed with it, because they remembered it as something extra beautiful or very extra special and charming, only to discover that that long sought charm vanished for good.

This hair ornament triggered one similar memory from my childhood – it was a sunny day and I was playing with a tennis ball on our terrace while my dad and my grandmother took care of me. You surely know how nasty tennis balls are when they bounce really high and mine was no exception – it hit the terrace ceiling and jumped all the way down into the terrace of the neighbors living at the ground floor. I stared in disbelief and some strange misery possessed me as I saw the old lady come into her terrace, take the ball, say something bad about how my intention was to throw things at her head after which she came back inside, slamming the door and shouting that I wouldn’t see that ball ever again. Ok, one simple tennis ball, that should be something easily replaceable, right? That wasn’t the case back then in my country, tennis had been the sport of the noble and rich and it only started having its first appearances in front of the massive audience with the success of few older sportsmen, Monica Seles being the most famous among them in the times when I was growing up. We had only that one tennis ball in the house, and I received it as a present, along with one of those ancient wooden heavy racquets I literally adored. First my grandma and then my dad went down there to ask for the ball and to explain that I was just a little child who surely didn’t mean any harm to anybody, but she insisted that this small ball could have meant the end of her days. I sadly pondered over my little loss for several days and I was promised to receive another ball soon, when the old lady for some reason changed her mind. She sad she felt pity for me, but that she was still suspicious that the dad or granny could drop down something much heavier and more dangerous on purpose… 🙂 I could have never imagined the two of them being capable of anything similar, but the neighbor trusted no one.

I was out of my mind with happiness when the ball returned and I never used it on the terrace ever again, scared that she could definitely not return it any more. Later I got or bought those nice three ball packs of all sorts of famous brands, there was even one period in which I very happily tried to play tennis almost every day and it made me contented even though I never had any sort of true talent for it, but I always remember that one particular ball from my childhood. On one of those little “training” sessions I was hitting balls right next to the court where a tennis coach held a proper class for some young couple, and I noticed that she had dozens and dozens of balls that she intended to leave behind and dispose of. I approached her and saw that all the balls had the “US open” print on them, so I asked her about them. She said that she coached some juniors who participated even in Grand slams and that these balls were definitely from New York – balls get replaced quite often during matches, especially because they “break” or simply soften from hard hits, so when the event ends they should all end up in waste, but coaches often collect them for the first beginners’ practices. The softer the ball is, the easier it gets to make it bounce over the net – you surely can’t get the precision out of those shots, but you can practice the technique. What I saw in those balls was primarily US open souvenirs, so I asked her if I could have some, knowing that it was highly improbable that I’ll even attend any Grand slam tennis match. She packed an entire bag of balls and handed it over to me, telling me that she really liked my determination and love for the game.

That bag is still in one corner of the living room, behind the door. There is an open space there left after the big wall closet occupied the place intended for it, so what was left served us for many years to keep there bulky memories of various sorts. I don’t know what happened to that first, precious ball. It could be easily there in that bag of Grand slam memories, balls hit maybe even by some old important players as well. If I find it, no matter how long it remained there temporarily forgotten, it will still carry the weight of the past times and bring back the memories of that afternoon and voices of those three people who are no longer among us. The neighbor passed away several years ago, my granny and my dad are together now at that far away cemetery out of the town.

The old lady wanted to destroy that yellow-greenish object, failing to see anything good or important in it. Yes it was just a ball, but that ball makes her as well live even today in my thoughts and in these lines. It also reminds me how much my granny and my dad cared for me and tried to make me happy by helping out to restore happiness in my life in any possible way.

I wish I could talk to them both, even just only one more time. I miss you guys so very much.

The most important thing in life is to – stay alive

Yes, it’s all about good health, overcoming illnesses and staying eventually alive, it’s not a trite phrase by any means. Because when you’re very sick, you can’t do anything. You can’t even just think clearly or grieve as you lie in bed, everything disappears in some surreal painful haze in which you reach the point where you beg to get a bit better so that you could at least suffer properly again.

What brought me to these thoughts? I got sick, again. It was some sort of respiratory infection gone wild probably because of my weakened immune response due to everything that happened in the last 3 months or so. One of the last useful medical tips my dad shared with me shortly before he died was that when your system lacks something and you start running on your body stores of the elements essential for its functioning, you have more or less three months left, unless you replenish your stores. It’s like a car without enough gasoline, reminding you to visit the nearest station and refill your tank. If you fail to do so, you can still cover some decent number of miles till the engine shuts completely down. It’s been almost exactly 3 months since this whole horror started, months of running, carrying, lifting, fetching, fighting, discussing, agonizing, taking care, witnessing the end, arranging funeral, taking care of the grave, respecting memorial dates, facing the places I haven’t seen in more than 7 years, grieving and crying and not sleeping, not eating properly, not stopping at any “gas station” along that mad road. I think that I was anyhow on the verge of collapsing, even without virus / bacteria that dance in the air at this time of the year.

First, there were some horrible chills and fever rising and falling in some desperate attempt of my body to resist the attack. 48 hours later I was in the bed in the middle of the night dreaming while I felt widely awake, I “saw” the “admittance ward” of the realm of the dead and some very nice and helpful deceased people who gathered to welcome me… I saw an entire river of those who passed away moving slowly down some hill, searching for their place. There were some strange ball-like constructions where as they said the most intelligent among them work on various cures and preserving options for the mother Earth, ball shaped rooms filled with some grayish substance necessary for our planet to keep on spinning for many more years. Spooky? Quite right.

Then I somehow semi-consciously snapped out of those melting images and made some effort to move in the bed, which was extremely painful. Next thing I realized was that the place I occupied previously in that bed was so hot that it could start steaming in any minute. I made some further effort to grab the thermometer and it took me a while to grasp that it showed something over 102. Wow. I had such fever only twice before, when I almost died of measles at the age of 7 and once when I was talking nonsense due to some very bad bacterial infection. Admittance ward and preserving mother Earth. That didn’t sound good. No way. Then I snapped back into that strange world, right where I stopped. I went to search for the dad, but they informed me that he was no longer on that “first level”, that he moved further or higher above. I remember that I was unhappy because I wasn’t able to see him, then I snapped back to the reality of my room again, my head seemed even hotter than before.

Next 48 hours were quite delirious, I was moaning, crying, taking pain / fever meds every 6 hours but that was hardly doing anything as I was in terrible pain, every muscle and nerve ending gave its best to produce the strongest pain possible that at some points it seemed that dying would be quite a merciful solution. When I would get very close to dialing ambulance to beg for some painkilling injections, things would get better from meds and so on, till the dawn came out and I dragged myself to bathroom… I opened my mouth, then I reopened it just harder and stared in total disbelief. Tonsils and everything else covered with thick layer of white substance, painful as if I were swallowing knives. And it was Sunday. Doctors covered by insurance don’t work on Sundays, hospitals don’t admit patients with sore throats. There are private labs and private medical care. Money. Ok, let’s apply dad’s teachings and my experience… I took out penicillin based antibiotics once again, broad spectrum, swallowed two pills, there was no time to lose. I could have hit the bacteria, but I could have missed. Equal chances, although it usually works for the infections of the throat. By the evening I mustered strength to drag myself to the lab and pay for the swabs of my throat, just to be sure. If I got it, swabs would be clean, as the antibiotic already got into the system. If not, we would at least see which antibiotic to take. No doctor could do better. I also ordered some blood work, just in case.

It takes some time for the culture from swabs to start growing, so I went on with my antibiotic, feeling totally off and partially on on alternative basis. There was some nasty bleeding from the inflamed nose and throat as well, so yes, ebola came into my mind’s picture as well, but nobody I know went to Africa… can I be sure? Stop being paranoid…
Then I got the result. Swabs clear. Totally perfect. Bloodwork? Iron depleted. Totally depleted. I was running on depleted stores for quite some time as it seems. Did I check the dad’s tumor marker? Oh yes I did. Scared as hell till I saw the result. Totally normal.

Conclusion? Three months of bad eating and nutritional neglect destroyed my immune response and turned a quite usual infection into a life threatening condition. What seemed “just a sore throat” should have been treated in hospital conditions as it had such a dramatic appearance, but in terms of medication, I did a great job. Dad would be proud. I’m sure he would. Hopefully, iron values will rise as well with supplements and hopefully life will continue as always…

Is it bad luck again, halting me one more time this year after I tried to do something productive and meaningful? Is this a permanent state or will this bad period finish ever again? No answer as usual. I just know that health matters very much. You can have everything else in this life, but it loses every meaning and purpose if you lose life. Because if you are not alive and healthy, you can’t even be sad and miserable. It feels as though there is a gap of all these past days in my grief, gap that consists of shock, loss of strength and switched priorities. From being extremely sad and depressed you turn to preserving your own life, no matter how much invaluable it seemed to you in depression.

You simply realize that your life is the only thing you really (though temporarily) HAVE in this world. Nothing else can matter that much.

Hang in there

There is one good, middle aged man in my neighborhood who was born with a certain degree of disability due to which he has numerous health problems. I didn’t even know he existed, nor that he lived just several hundred meters away from me, because only in the block of adjacent buildings where I stay there are more or less 1,000 souls, not to mention that this whole area of the town with these same buildings consists of 13-14 such identical blocks. In reality, we are one entire little town by itself, condensed in not that much vast land area, there are so many people living literally ones on the top of others packed in apartments with mostly insufficient number of square meters yet you rarely know the person living next door, not to mention somebody from a different floor or in a different building within the same block. It wasn’t like that in the past, not even in that not very distant past when we moved in here a bit more than 30 years ago. People cared more about other people and life wasn’t so much about material possession and personal vanity as it is now, I sincerely and dearly miss that country called Yugoslavia I was born in. If I were still living in Yugoslavia (and I’m not, even though I haven’t moved an inch away in these last nearly 4 decades), the man from the beginning of this story would be in much better shape today. He would have completely free health care, some personal income due to his very legitimate disability issues, access to daily meals for people with income problems. He would have some dignity in this life and more people on the block would know he existed and offered some help, because social services would work on his integration in the community.

In his twenties, he used to live in Yugoslavia as well, and his father’s company helped him the best they could by letting him work in the company’s kitchen for their workers. He carried things around and peeled some vegetables, he had some little income and full insurance – those were the best days in his little unfortunate life, days before the world slowly but definitely started tumbling down on him.
Yugoslavia got torn up in pieces, swallowed by its own inhabitants who turned against each others, failing to understand that the consequences of these actions would harm only themselves and no one else. His dad’s company first suffered the beginning of a bad economical crisis. Then his dad passed away, failing to buy off their living space from the state in the midst of that crazy stellar inflation, as we all did and thus literally saved ourselves. His dad’s company eventually had to be restructured in the process of privatization, obligatory in the transition towards capitalism, but nothing prevented bankruptcy from happening. He lost his little job and remained with his mom who inherited his dad’s retirement money, as she didn’t have any income of her own. Life went on while his mom could take care of their lives in every possible sense, but in the end she passed away too several years ago. And this is when life stopped. He remained completely alone, lost, in Serbia now, with no means to live this life and expired ID, hidden among us with no electricity, with unpaid bills and no food for days in a row. He can do some things, but he needs to be told exactly what to do and he has to be partially supervised, which makes it almost impossible for him to find some kind of stable work position in this country. I found about him for the first time when an old lady involved in an organization for saving stray dogs moved in with him to help him out in exchange for the accommodation for her and the dogs she took care of. Things got better for a while, bills got payed again, there was some food on the table every day… but the lady’s age is such that she progressively needed more and more help for herself, and somewhere by the time my dad declined she left the man’s place as it seems for good. Dogs were took over by the organization, the lady was accepted by some relatives and he is alone again, growing older himself and becoming more and more helpless as time goes by. My mom helps him with food as always in these last years as much as she can, but life has hanged for us as well. I remember that in the middle of my worst panic ridden despair when I didn’t go anywhere, I secretly and deeply feared that I would end up like him and it scared me to death. Those fears returned all right with income problems and the shock my dad’s passing away caused in my little life.

I saw him today. I turned round the corner as he was emptying some huge bag of high class garbage into a container, obviously a chore he was asked to do for someone in exchange for an equivalent of a dollar or two, or a sandwich for that day. It was a sad contrast to see him, a man in a clearly very neglected state and torn clothes, throwing away very expensive waste items. My heart sank as I said hello to him, he wouldn’t notice me otherwise as his vision deteriorates heavily as well. He knows about my dad from my mom, so he asked how we were doing. We were standing in front of that container, the sky was heavy and black as the depths of my soul, and this person who’s lived genuine hardships asked me if I was coping, when the right question would be if and how he is coping. I said I was managing, somehow. He looked firmly at me and smiled, saying: “Hey, hang in there. You have to. Got it? HANG IN THERE.” Then he waved goodbye and wandered away as I stood in disbelief. Honestly speaking, what does he have to hope for in this world? He is doomed to soon lose even the bed he’s sleeping in when bills accumulate again, this time to the point of no return. He would have all the right to totally give up. This person who has sometimes hard time getting simple things wanted to make sure I got it that I had to hang in there. Ashamed, sad, amazed, humbled, shaken… that’s how I felt returning to my realistically really modest home, I have no idea how it feels to be wealthy or even just well off. I looked around me and thought… what would he give to exchange places with me and have my life, with all its hardships? Probably everything. It would be for him as if somebody had taken stars of the sky and spread them in front of his feet. Or it would equal touching that distant sky above us. He would be extremely happy. And I’m so miserable.

How is it possible for people to differ so much in the same circumstances? No matter what, if somebody like him tells you to hang in there, then you really have to do it. Such messages can’t be ignored.

Battles are inside

It’s not the first time that I feel this strange distinction between the storm going on in my inner world and the serenity of the reality that surrounds me. Things in life are very plain if you manage to see them for what they really are, objectively, detaching yourself from the emotions you attribute to them. No matter how hard we try to run, fight, push, pull, squeeze, beg, drive ourselves crazy in some desperate attempt to change the course of imminent things,life blankly follows its own rules. And life’s rules are much bigger and stronger than that small dose of electrical energy that’s pulsating in our bodies while we’re still technically alive. Substantially speaking, life is simple. Life doesn’t divide things in good and bad, it doesn’t judge or analyze, it never gets happy or sad over its own actions. There are processes that have to be carried out from the beginning to the end, and life infallibly fulfills that mission. It does the work, but it doesn’t care about it. It’s us people who care, not life. This realization is one of crucial moments in dealing with panic disorder, that split second when you realize that you’re having all sorts of scary thoughts, panicking, drowning in a glass of water… over actually nothing. Nothing is going on that makes you feel that way, it’s just how you feel about something you want to do or situations ahead of you. Plainly put, it’s not life, it’s you. Understanding this can make the difference between suffering a full blown panic attack and halting it when it made only half of the damage. After some hard practice, it can truly work.

When it comes to real life events, it’s a lot harder, even though the principles are almost exactly the same. My dad got sick at some point in time. When exactly and how, we’ll never know. His cells grew and divided for many long years without particular problems. Or if there were problems, his body had ways or means to fix these mistakes. And on he went this way till some day when some big, irreparable mistake happened. Cells continued to grow and divide, healthy ones in their usual way, unhealthy ones in some fast, vicious, mistaken way. This process continued as he was living his life calmly and peacefully, oblivious of what was going on inside. When he got the symptoms, it was already too late. What we witnessed was only the last phase of that for a good reason called malignant process. Bad cells grew right through the most important clusters of good cells and ended my dad’s life, dying instantly in the battle they so triumphantly won. And then there was silence. Simple, bad, dead silence. It happened, it had its course and then it was finished, life did its job. All the rest – all my physical and mental struggle, all the images that still come back in horrific flashbacks day and night, all the tears, all the sorrow, all the questions (why this, why him, why us…), all that denial, anger, bargaining, depression and occasional painful acceptance, those are all just human created extensions of this story. The story ended more than a month ago and I’m still shaken inside and it’s still shaking every thing in my life, I’m still struggling and drowning in that small glass of water… but there is nothing in my reality OF TODAY that’s provoking this. The only difference between this situation and a panic attack situation is that I have a reason for my feelings, while panic has no foundations in reality. There surely is a reason, but it’s already sealed as a past event. I can’t change a thing about that reason. I can’t travel back in time and change things that haunt me as being something that I could have perhaps done differently. I can’t escape to future either to run away from the intensity of this recent loss. The only thing I have is now, this present moment. And as nothing bad is going on right now (at least nothing I’m aware of), it turns out that I shouldn’t be so shaken. People who manage to put this truth into action are on a good road to mastering that Zen’s full embracing of the reality in the present moment. There is nothing bad about holding onto this truth, it can only spare you from all that pain that actually serves no other purpose than to harm the person experiencing it. Yet it’s so hard to make this detachment. Is it guilt, the feeling that you’ll forget the person you loved very much if you no longer experience pain? Or perhaps the failure to put this into action is some sign of emotional immaturity or instability? I don’t know the answer. What I know though is that I’m still very much battling with myself, paradoxically still fighting against a finished illness, worrying constantly, reliving the details and painfully looking for the exact thing that went wrong in the first place. I do the chores of the day, I suffer, I live, I suffer, I sleep, I wake up and I suffer again. And none of this ongoing agony is real now, there is stillness of an autumn night outside, occasionally interrupted by rain and blows of wind against the windows. There are no battles out there, not any more, battles are all inside. But there is a huge step between understanding and implementing this.

It’s all life

Something crossed my mind tonight as I was washing the black shirt I wear a lot these days. I’ve been wearing only black things since dad passed away, but not really or only because it is the tradition in my country – this is how I feel and this is what the mind naturally chooses to do, it’s somehow that the brain becomes color resistant in grief – at least this is the best I can describe it with words. It totally is not me though to wear only black, so I had to buy some shirts, the one I was washing being one of them. My mind wandered off in this process to the phone conversation I had had earlier in the evening – I wasn’t feeling well at all in the first place when the phone rang, and there was this person calling with lots of shiny and glittering details about going on a luxurious holiday. Not a word about me, my life, my feelings, if and how I’m coping. Just about how great the place is, how much it costs, how special the accommodation will be… I sort of couldn’t grasp why I had to endure listening to all that boasting in this period of my life, with or without the situation with my dad I’m miles away from such a lifestyle and people involved in that story. Then as I was wrenching the shirt, I suddenly realized how firmly black its color is and how different life is for every one of us in any given moment – somebody is embarking on a high style journey, somebody is as we say wrapped up in black, somebody out there is being born at that very instant, somebody is celebrating a birthday or an anniversary. Somebody is getting married or divorced, somebody is sick or dying, somebody is being buried. It has always fascinated me how so many different things could be going on in the exact same fraction of time on this planet. Good, great, bad and horrible things, all together. And it is all life.