Bad memories, sad memories
I don’t know if this is the worst PMS ever, or whether I’m going over the edge. For the past 2 days I’ve just been obsessing about bad times.
A couple of off-hand comments on others’ blogs yesterday about my bad birth experience, and boom, I was up until dawn reliving it, wishing I had closure, for hours. I don’t know if I will ever be mentally ready to have another child, and I’m sad about that.
Tonight, after thinking about Kenn’s entry saying his roommate’s HIV test was positive, I’ve been remembering my friend R.
He was a million contradictions in one person – gay, Jewish, Republican – and one of the nicest people I ever knew. He was diagnosed HIV+ in around 1985, and at that time it was like being handed a death sentence. 2 to 5 years of heavy suffering, no time off for good behavior. In 1986 he attempted suicide. In 1987 he had a heart attack. Still he kept on, weak, ill, but regaining a little of his sense of humor. I didn’t find out until the summer of his heart attack that he was gay or had AIDS, or why he had attempted suicide.
In 1988 I left for college. After I had moved into my dorm room, met my roommate and hallmates, and settled in, I went to the campus post office to make sure my key worked. When I opened my box, I found something there. Great, I thought, already I have junk mail on the first day of college. It wasn’t junk. It was a letter from R. that he had sent me so that I wouldn’t have an empty mailbox. In true R. form, it was in an elephant-shaped card. He was such a hardcore Republican.
I was busy, but I had no excuse. I just forgot to call or write back. Holidays at home were short, and I didn’t take time to visit him. My friends told me he looked bad, and it probably made me uncomfortable to think about seeing him so sick. By the time I finally got around to calling, he was quite ill in the hospital, and just about to move into the hospice. The conversation didn’t last long. He tried to be nice, but was too weak and in too much pain to talk.
He died in 1989, and I never did go to see him. I can’t live a long enough life to get past that guilt. There was a small group of his friends who sat with him around the clock in those last few days. Later I found out that my aunt, who is also a hardcore Republican, was one of the group. I never even realized they knew each other.
So tonight I brood on R. What will it be tomorrow? My parents, my cat, the grass in the back yard? Hopefully it will be nothing, and I can go back to living for today without moaning about yesterday.
July 12th, 2003 at 11:22 am
I think that, at least every once in a while, it’s okay to go back and dwell on the sad events in our past. First, it provides perspective for how wonderful things are now (if they are, of course), and second, it allows us a mood (and thus hormones like adrenaline) that we might not be getting enough of. 😉
So: brooding is healthy, in moderation!
July 12th, 2003 at 10:27 pm
I agree with Kenneth. And as a therapist, I think this culture tends to pathologize normal feelings of grief and sadness. Wounds leave scars, and every now and then they twinge. Loss and grieving are a part of life, a process, so now and then it seems to me the healthy human will experience these feelings.
Perhaps a visit to For The Little Ones Inside will help. (((hug)))