Forever

I'm doing an event at a brewery that's music and literature where I might do harmony on a Beatles song with a friend. I'm not a great or even a good singer. But I can harmonize. Especially on a Beatles song. 

So the song we are performing is "Two of Us." I've been practicing using the Aimee Mann and Michael Penn version from the soundtrack of "I Am Sam". Recording myself. Trying to improve. Trying to sing from my gut and breathe. 

Doing this process reminds me that life is about taking risks. Chances. Doing something you have always wanted to do. 

Shoot. I'm 53. Almost 54. If I'm not going to get up on a microphone and sing now at an event, I probably never will. Plus, I'd like to go for it before I need a walker and the Botox still works relatively well. 

There is something about the line, well the chorus, that slays me. "You and I have memories/Longer than the road that stretches out ahead." 

It reminds me of my mortality and of the many years I've been with my husband, and that we may have lived and been together longer than the years ahead. It's a depressing thought at first but if you really think about it, it's also lovely to think that things do last. If you try really hard. 

They can last almost forever. 

Dry eye

It's almost six am. I'm thinking of all of the departed: about my dad John, my father in law Alberto, my brother in law Gabe, and the shih tzus, Frodo and Chewbacca. Life is fleeting. It's short. It goes by so quick.

Sometimes, and maybe everyone isn't like this, I need to distract myself with things. Television, games, substances, even writing, just to quiet the barrage in my brain. My brain never stops. I feel as if it's a constant stream of consciousness.

What works best is writing. But I can't live my life only on the page, so I manage. It's not debilitating at all some might say. I'm pretty productive. I manage a full time job which keeps the thoughts at bay. I'm fine when I'm busy. It's when I'm forced to sit with myself that I can't. 

I want to get there. I do. Really I do. I know that if I'm able to sit with myself, I can be with others more presently. 

Yesterday, my eyes were burning. I know it's partially dry eye. I have drops. But perhaps I also need to cry. For everyone I've lost, for the state the world is in, and for my inability to sit with myself. Because maybe if I can cry about it, I can eventually fix it. 

And that would be epic. 

A Carrie Girl in the IE

Anyone who knows me well, ahem my husband, knows I watch shows on repeat. Gilmore Girls, West Wing, Lost, and the original Sex and the City (SATC). SATC is one of my favorite shows of all time. There's something about the friendships. It just touches and entertains me. 

And I've always been a Carrie. C'mon, she's a writer and a free spirit and has curly hair and plus, she loves fashion and cosmos. So of course I'm a Carrie. (Yes, I know Miranda is a lawyer, but she's always been too buttoned up for me)

The reboot (And Just Like That) is wrapping up and these last episodes have slayed me a bit. The reboot series has become a bit melancholy in season three and yet (despite an uneven first season) I still love it. Carrie lost Mr. Big (he died episode 1, season 1 of the reboot) and she is a widow. 

(Spoiler to come)

Carrie's heartfelt attempted reconciliation with Adian was a bust, and then the Brit writer she liked and who liked her primarily for her brains and writing skills (which was new for her) left. Now Carrie is adrift and all alone. Wondering, and writing, what's wrong with being alone? And is she alone? She still has her friends. And her writing. 

I've been with my love for decades. Yet, I've always had a secret fear that I would end up alone, adrift without my rock. My husband Adrian is the place I moor. And the possibility of being without each other is one that both of us have to consider could happen one day. We have no kids. What would I do? What would he do? 

I don't know. But what I'm sure of is that I would be lost. And while writing is a salve, it's not everything. I guess what I'm saying is that I am truly starting to feel my mortality at almost 54. It feels scary. But it's reality. 

Tis life as they say. So I plan on appreciating life and what I have more, because, and this is more true than anything, it is beautiful.