"A continuum is something that keeps on going, changing slowly over time, like the continuum of the four seasons. "
We all live on our personal life continuum. Since Donna's diagnosis of Stage IV cancer the continuum I resided on was obvious. The left most point on my continuum was her death. The right most point is my future. Sometimes I moved forward. Sometimes I moved backward. Sometimes I stalled. The continuum remained the same, her death and my life.
I'm residing on a new continuum as I speed towards an expiration date. The two points on this new continuum are "Nothing Matters" and "I Don't Care". I feel chained to this with no Houdini like skills to escape. I pull and pull at the chains holding me in this state of being to no avail. Or maybe I just don't care and this is what it is. I weight the way and the what for's of this moment. Hard to say with any certainty why but, I can hazard some guesses.
I've outlived any desire of being a voice for grief and loss. A voice for the memoir and Donna. I'm learning that measuring motivation and desire to continue this is based on the premiss of likes, shares, and engagement. Which is social media idolatry and not self worth. The simple and meaningful belief in what you create. What you create for you with your voice. Social media idolatry saps inspiration and drive though fuzzy math. The self actualized are just that, the self in the actual world without external algorithmic conditions. If I can see this I can change this? No so much. I'm just needy.
Aging in place holds its own questions and reality that roils my brain. A minor but unyielding knee issue wakes me to the WTF. It has limited my previous easy and relentless activity. Slowed me down. Is this the new state of being for me? I know that aging means slow repair and time. I have the patience of a gnat. I want to be what was—again. (In more ways then you know.) That looking at the past with rose colored glasses makes this all the more annoying and unwelcome. That is part of this new continuum. My body hates me as much as I hate it.
I wonder do I have any more to give to others or myself? I do. Does it matter? That’s it. Does it matter? Any of it. Any longer. I’m finding the peace of volunteering as a crisis counselor is boring. (Yes, I did say peace because I can drill down into meaning and purpose for me.)
Then there is the isolation. That being forced to be you alone. No Donna, no fam, no nothing. Thank you virus. All of this was mitigated with more writing, crisis counseling volunteering, and digging in to make this state of nada bearable. It was all good. It slathered me with some meaning and purpose. The will to do and not surrender was predominate. That has run its course it seems. Turned the corner looked back at me and shrugged. There’s always looking for new. More shrugs and big old so what.
Travel is an option. Get the fuck out of dodge. Find some sun some fun a place that's not here. Perhaps that will reignite the will to live to do to be? Well just let me present my reality in case you're missing it. No matter where I go there I am, me in the same state of being. Add to that another hearty shrug and digging my toes into the hardwood floors afraid to leave this nothing.
Finally there is the is it time to just throw in the towel. Join Donna and call it a life lived? This is where I stray from the above since I've not really got everything in place to do that with the style and aplomb I’ve set in my mind.
There you have it. Whatever it is in relation to me and my world.