“Feather to fire
fire to blood
blood to bone
bone to marrow
marrow to ashes
ashes to snow.” Gregory Colbert
Having finished Joan Didion’s “Blue Nights” it makes me think about life. I am into her books these days. It started with “Slouching towards Bethlehem” which I thought was a great read. I continued with “The year of magical thinking” which I loved and without giving too much away if you end up reading anything by her it gave me a great insight of how her life was back then when her husband died and her daughter was in hospital. So “Blue Nights” is about how she deal with the suffering after. I put the book down and thought about life. My life. Our life. My family.
I wish there was a way I could know when it would be the last time I would see someone. I know this is not possible of course but it reminds me to pay extra attention to what I am doing on a daily basis. (I know I should ALWAYS put my seatbelt on Jean!)
Hug and kiss the people I love more and pay extra attention to them. And make sure to hug these people even harder when it comes to saying goodbye. With me, living this sort-of expat life it is never easy. I have been saying goodbye so many times and I still cry.
We would certainly pay extra attention if we would know this is the last time we can see “them”. But on a daily basis? How many times did we leave the house after we had a fight with our significant other or family member? We don’t really care most of the time do we? We go about living our lives and our days. Sometimes I think we do act in a way that we will not feel sadness or regret when the inevitable does happen even though it is impossible not to.
How Joan Didion describes in “Blue Nights” how strong her relationship with her daughter was made me so sad. There was this deep deep love for each other. She has lost her but time goes on, life goes on and things happen. I tend to always worry. “Horrible -things -might -happen” kind of thinking. The worst is the older I get the more I see this happening but I am working on it and trying to get better. My husband on the other hand sees things relaxed. Not worrying and just dealing with the situation that is present. Here and now. As we all should.
Sometimes I wake up with a head full of anxiety. Then my brain is an enemy. I hate these feelings. I can be all happy for weeks, months, and happily bounce along and then one day something comes up in my mind and then there is this grey area – this fog. Sometimes I feel like things are going too well in my life so something has to bring me back to reality. So then I sit up in bed thinking about things, my mind racing, getting upset about something that happened way back when. And recently I thought, wow, I am 34 years old… all these things I should have done with my life right now. I felt so sad about myself because listing to others (even my family) I should have this and that by now and live there and have a house there and ablablab…. “All these things I could have done with my life”. I am human. I have these feeling once in a while.
However, I live this expat life and I love it. No matter what anybody says or thinks of it. I appreciate that the daffodils come up again in spring and that the snow falls in winter and that it is so freaking hot right now that we sit outside in the middle of the night just to feel a little comfortable.
We all have great days and bad days and we do all sort of things that add up into one big feeling about what we are building and creating. All we really want to know is what all this means. What this life is all about. I try to pay attention and try to remember. I tell my family and friends that I love them and hug them hard when they leave and I do enjoy every single moment when I am with them. All we do is keep going and looking ahead and I have learned that it is important to just carry the people that cannot be with me right now in my heat at all times. And in that way they will always be here instead of there; they will always be with me, a part of the now instead of just then. In my heart! <3
