I’ve written about this before, but I have this exaggerated fear of loss. More specifically, my parents golden retriever is 16. She’s doing well for her age, but she’s growing more and more unsteady, slowing down month by month. She probably won’t last the winter. This reality terrifies me.
I’ve spent a lot of time raising her, looking after her throughout her life. A lot of that time I was living at home with her. She was pretty much the only being who consistently looked happy to see me when I got up every day, who wanted to be around me when I came home from work miserable. She used to curl up in a ball and sleep on me when she was a puppy.
And I suppose what I’m afraid of is losing that link back to the past. To a time when I was less hopeless. Of losing one of the few creatures who has some significance in my life. Because I don’t believe I have it in me to form new bonds anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever get a pet of my own.
And this fear extends beyond her, to my parents. They’re both pension-age now. They both have health concerns. They’re going to die at some point, and I’ll lose the only people that genuinely give a shit. The only people who care enough to check up on me or ask about my issues. My only real link to humanity. And my only link back to a time when I was happy, when I was still a person. And all that’ll be left is the misery that I am now.
And this fear grips me. I wake up consumed by it on random mornings. Like I have to do something about it. I have to stop it from happening, somehow.
Which is absurd. In order to do that I’d have to find a way to stop the aging process. That’s like trying to hold back the tide. Even if it were possible, it’s not going to be me, some humanities-degree dropout, who finds a way. It’ll be someone highly motivated and qualified in the sciences. Even if I dedicated all my time and energy to it from this point on, I’d still be so far behind that I’d never come close to catching up with an expert.
Which is to say that I’m effectively powerless. And I know this, rationally. Yet still the fear grips me. Like I see it coming and have to do something to prevent it. To prevent death, one of the few universally recognized inevitabilities.
And the real issue here is that I’m not building anything in this life, to replace the things I’ll inevitably lose. I’m not in a relationship, I don’t have any children, I don’t have any close friends, and I don’t see any prospect of any of that changing. That’s all you can do to cope with the pain of life. You can’t cling to the past, because it’ll inexorably be torn from your grip by the passage of time. All you can do is look to the future, and try to build something meaningful enough to make all the loss worth it. And I’m not building any kind of future worth living in. I don’t feel capable of it. So I’m just left with the loss, and the fear of it.
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Huh, it’s like rewinding back to 2002 before I lost my grandmother. She had ALS, so we all saw it coming, but that made it in no way any easier. From there, I’ve been trying to justify living on. She passed in 03 in her early 70s. I refuse to remember the number, because it was too young. She was intensely healthy, right up until she got sick.
That was the point I decided that healthy living was a crock of shit. That’s why I started smoking in 2010, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Both the cats I grew up with died before that. At old ages, but it wasn’t easy. Then I got married in 08. It fell apart sometime in 09. Divorce was final by the end of 10, and that was the loss that broke me. I was not equipped to lose that future at age 21-22.
From there I’ve been…. this. You wouldn’t recognize who I was before, because now I dive on the loss grenade. My childhood dog died somewhere in there, along with my first dogs in adulthood, and first cat……. oh my that’s the worst story I have to tell and no one will ever hear it.
So now I realize that I’m attracted to people who are soon to die. I like doomed people. I keep this mostly to myself, none of my doomed friends know it. My wife, for example. My ex wife too, wasn’t doomed enough turns out, I’m being sassy, she’s fine.
but the dog I finally ended up getting after all of that, I got her at one years old, she’s still holding on. I never know with her. She’s dramatic. A few years ago she had me convinced she was at death’s door, so I got a puppy….. and she didn’t go, so now we have three dogs.
Now, just this past month our middle dog developed a pinpoint ulcer in his eye, making him look blind in it, and it’s been extremely expensive…….. and he’s a medical mess, only 9 years old and 30 pounds if healthy he could easily live another 9 years but who knows.
My granddad, drinker, smoker, died at 93 in 15, again reinforcing my attitude that lifestyle doesn’t matter. Oh and he was in a wheelchair at the end, why? Jogging. Fricken living well is the worst thing that happens to people.
Douglas Adams, writer of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy died on a treadmill. Which is why I have stayed away from those things.
My parents are retirement age, so it’s coming. I’m more worried about which one is left behind. Even so, I never know if I’ll be ready. Dad particularly is fading faster than I’d like. The fading is worse. I think anyway, I don’t look forward to finding out.