Close Watch

I’m headed into unhappy anniversary time. It was June, three years ago, when The Amazing Bob’s cancer vaulted into serious overdrive. This came on top of all the other fun crapoli he had to deal with. What ultimately took him out was acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Cancer laid the foundation for ARDS' cruel attack.

Janice suggested that I’m angry. Gee duh, ya think!? Anger's kinda my normal resting state. She feels that I need to not suppress the rage but allow myself to experience it. Once I acknowledge it, let it out to steam and play for a bit, it’ll pass like mist at sunrise.

Sounds great but here’s the thing – who am I agitato with/at? She posited TAB. Could I honestly be mad at TAB though? For what? The crime of dying on me? That makes no goddamned sense at all. HE didn’t dial up the cancer, crushed disks OR the blisteringly assholic, motherfucking ARDS.

A person I used to know found himself in the similar spot. His beloved father was terminally ill. The young man blamed his much loved, dying father for his very own death. The kid was resentful IN SPADES. I never understood why he would, unjustly, blame his father until now. The son was so horrified at losing his Da and needed a target for all that disconsolate rage. He desperately needed the man’s impending death to make sense as in, this wouldn’t have happened if my father had exercised more/less, had eaten more/less, had created flying hamsters while walking on the moon more/less, and IF, IF, IF.

 I don’t know how this son ended up working through his intense pain, his loss. Maybe blaming his dead father worked a treat for him, eh? Possibly, he alienated and lost friends with his scattershot acrimony. I'm betting on it.

Me? I like to dance tight with reality. What’s apparent to me right now is that realistic, related, worthy and sensible targets for my ire don't exist. I’m NOT about to let this shit leak out on the undeserving – that's the road to Lonely Town.  I did, however warn Jen and Ten that I might accidentally go off on either of them for, ya know, not reading my mind accurately or quickly enough.

Bottom line, I’m angry at the universe for taking my Amazing Bob away. BUT how can one express one’s rage at the universe. It’s kind of a big, blobby thing and all.

The other side of the Asshole Universe coin is that it did give me Ten. You can take it from me mes ami, Ten ain’t no bloody consolation prize!

It’s weird to be blithe and mega sorrowful at the same time. Life – it’s a damn puzzler, innit?

John Cale – Close Watch