Once there was a pilgrim lady who wanted to be more than a housewife. And a pilgrim husband who got up and chopped wood and worked in whatever profession pilgrims worked in until he came home tired, just to get up the next day and do it all again. These pilgrims had children who went to the little schoolhouse down the road and had dreams about being more than what their pilgrim mommy and daddy were.
And now they are all dead.
That's what I think about. Really. I see little elementary school kids and think what's the point, because they are going to die, too. Maybe tomorrow (G-d forbid) or maybe not for 98 years, but there's no way out of it, they are going to die.
I see an old person, a really old person, and think how are they not obsessed with the fact that when they go to bed they could just -- poof -- die. Like that. I go to bed and sometimes wake up to pee and I become obsessed that -- poof -- I'm going to die. Just like that.
Here's the interesting thing about it. I'm not a depressed person. At all. It's just that dying is something that frames most of my thoughts and actions. I wish I could shake it but it clings to me steadfast like a hungry child desperate for food.
I'm particularly obsessed with how parents are able to go on once their kids perish before them. It is so incomprehensible to me that I am convinced that the reason most religions made suicide a sin is because they know parents would otherwise tie 40 pounds of rocks around their waists before throwing themselves off the highest tower in the village.
Knowing all this, what propels us to get up every day and go to work and school and stand in line at the market and stop at the red lights? Why don't we just grow a garden and live off the land and have sex and eat grapes and write and paint and swim in the salty ocean? I am not asking this hypothetically. I want to know why.
I want to find a plot of land and do exactly that and not read the news about seven children dying in a horrific fire or about planes crashing filled with students coming home from a school trip. I want to give up all electronics - and yes, the irony is not lost on me as I type this -- and drink wine and lay in the sand and enjoy my husband and my sons, and I want them to find someone they love and have babies and populate my little idyllic world with these babies. And I want to love their kids in a way that I didn't love them because I was too busy doing all the bullshit that was required of me or that I foolishly imposed upon myself.
Yet tick tock the clock goes and tomorrow we will get up and do it again until the doctor comes back and says sorry your test was positive and there will be no more time for grapes or sex or anything and one day someone will tell the story of a housewife who needed more.
And now they are all dead.
That's what I think about. Really. I see little elementary school kids and think what's the point, because they are going to die, too. Maybe tomorrow (G-d forbid) or maybe not for 98 years, but there's no way out of it, they are going to die.
I see an old person, a really old person, and think how are they not obsessed with the fact that when they go to bed they could just -- poof -- die. Like that. I go to bed and sometimes wake up to pee and I become obsessed that -- poof -- I'm going to die. Just like that.
Here's the interesting thing about it. I'm not a depressed person. At all. It's just that dying is something that frames most of my thoughts and actions. I wish I could shake it but it clings to me steadfast like a hungry child desperate for food.
I'm particularly obsessed with how parents are able to go on once their kids perish before them. It is so incomprehensible to me that I am convinced that the reason most religions made suicide a sin is because they know parents would otherwise tie 40 pounds of rocks around their waists before throwing themselves off the highest tower in the village.
Knowing all this, what propels us to get up every day and go to work and school and stand in line at the market and stop at the red lights? Why don't we just grow a garden and live off the land and have sex and eat grapes and write and paint and swim in the salty ocean? I am not asking this hypothetically. I want to know why.
I want to find a plot of land and do exactly that and not read the news about seven children dying in a horrific fire or about planes crashing filled with students coming home from a school trip. I want to give up all electronics - and yes, the irony is not lost on me as I type this -- and drink wine and lay in the sand and enjoy my husband and my sons, and I want them to find someone they love and have babies and populate my little idyllic world with these babies. And I want to love their kids in a way that I didn't love them because I was too busy doing all the bullshit that was required of me or that I foolishly imposed upon myself.
Yet tick tock the clock goes and tomorrow we will get up and do it again until the doctor comes back and says sorry your test was positive and there will be no more time for grapes or sex or anything and one day someone will tell the story of a housewife who needed more.
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