Monday night at home

Spent all weekend down in San Jo with my family. It was alternately sad, boring, devastating, and sometimes poignant and illuminating. I had a lot of time with my sisters, J. and C. We talked about morbid things, like our own eventual deaths and Mom's eventual death. If there's one thing I know about how I wanna go out, it's that everyone needs to drink good booze at the party.

Astrid's studying for her oral exam, and DJ is here, borrowing a computer to write his paper on the filmic representations of Ulysses. I should be studying too, but I'm distracted (I'd like to say because of Andrew's death, which is certainly true as well, but I'll admit that I'm distracted, per yoozsh).

It's amazing, the tonal change that comes with death. It gets one to thinking about the eventual deaths of everyone, and about the deaths that have already come, deaths that were expected, deaths that traumatized. The concentric circles of grief spiral outward and expand to cover everything. I'm normally a body preoccupied with it. I might work with bereaved folks in my practicum next year. I'm probably writing my thesis about it, and I'm currently reading an amazing book about it. I don't consider myself a morbid person; I'm pretty fucking joyful, as a matter of fact. But what can I say? I find death compelling in its terrifyingness, and I embrace the chance to learn from it.

Every time death comes for someone I love, it completely humbles me. Everything I thought I knew, killed. I search for the healing from my dad's death, over thirty years ago, for which I was completely not cognizant, being two and all. The relief comes in tiny bits, macerated in my tears and laughter over decades and decades.

My mom and I had a remarkable conversation on the phone today. Andrew's death is bringing up stuff about Dad's for her, stuff she hasn't fully processed thirty years later, either. She said to me today that she is tired of death, and doesn't want to see anyone else die. Which implied, of course, that she'd rather die than live through another death. I, myself, am bracing for the experience of watching many more of my loved ones die, because, despite the pain of loss, I very much want to live and thrive and survive for a lot longer. But I guess when you're 70 years old, and you buried your husband at age 38, and then years later buried your father, and then your mother, your nephew, your best friends, and your lover, it's really enough. She said she doesn't know what she believes, and it causes her anxiety. Will she be reunited with her loved ones in some sort of cloudy paradise, or will she simply cease to exist? Will she make bedfellows with the worms? Will she live again?

Bed time for me, the kind replete with breathing, dreams, being draped in the arms of the most amazing girl in the world. I'll try to make it til tomorrow, I will.

xo
Bree