Living in opposition
I’m not suicidal, I’m just ready to die. How could I explain to my doctor what I had never put into words before? Then it hit me. I’m approaching the age of my dad when he died. Some time in the last ten years I went to be afraid of dying to accepting the inevitable. I’ve heard it happens; I just didn’t recognize it in me.
All of my life, I made decisions about who I want to be based on not being like my mom. I couldn’t have put it into words, but I cringed whenever her words didn’t ring true. Once a neighbor had trimmed her tree and left all the branches that pointed up. The arborist she later hired complemented her on a great job. Then I heard my mother saying, “Hmmm…if I were going to trim up this tree, I would trim all the branches except for the ones that are pointing up.” I couldn’t put into words what bothered me about this except it felt false. It wouldn’t be until I was an adult and in therapy for years that I would find the words that had so eluded me in my youth.
If you can’t put it into words, you can’t make anyone believe you. Or so I believed.
Mom is eighty-four years old and afraid to die. I know that I don’t want to live as long as her. Look at her life; she’s miserable. But she won’t let go. And so it goes. Once again I’m making decisions in opposition to her.
So, I’m telling my doctor that I don’t want to be too healthy, because I don’t want to live to be eighty-four. I thought it was because I couldn’t seem to make my dreams come true. I quit trying, because I got thwarted at every turn. I thought I was tired of trying. But I wonder if I’d feel the same way if mother wasn’t around. Am I just pruning my tree of all but the branches pointing down?
Add comment January 11th, 2008