I Ain't Goin' Out Like That

In case anyone thinks I am about to jump off the nearest building I am not. That's not where I am headed. When I am depressed and scared and lonely it's because I love life and I don't want it to end sooner rather than later. I love feeling my lungs expand as I run up cat hill in Central Park. I love when I can make it the full minute in standing bow pulling pose in yoga. Nothing makes me happier than a burger with everything, fries and a brownie from 'The Burger Joint' in the Parker Meridien. And adrenaline filled nights when the cutest boy at the bar comes up to me and it turns out he can also make me laugh. I love the taste of a soy mocha from Starbucks which always reminds me of law school and the Starbucks on Chambers Street I'd go to. The first snow. The first warm day. Finding the perfect word to make the perfect sentence. Prosecco with AC at MiniBar where we toast with every sip. Kir Royales with A and V where our pretext is to go out and meet boys but we always end up together, going from party to bar to party, unable to get enough of each other, taking cellphone pictures in the back seat of a cab. BE and her contradictory mix of kindness and unflinching honesty and unending generosity. Kvetching with S. Eating with C. Being so happy that D is getting married, everytime I think about her I smile. My family and our secret language and bond deeper than blood or water.

So that's where I am coming from when I write about death and lonliness and terror and frustration. I don't want my life to end sooner; I want it to end later. And I can't escape these feelings like what if this is the last time I ever get to do X. What if I never see Y again? I better seize every moment take every opportunity and I get so angry when I can't. When I am sick and I can't go I am miserable and hate my body and hate that I have no jedi mind control over my body. I hate when I am sick and I miss something or someone. I signed up to be in the lottery for the 2007 New York City Marathon. Hopefully I get in and can run it again. I want to be able to plan for my future. I want to feel like I can settle in and get comfortable. I want to believe that something good will happen to me and sometimes I don't believe it ever will. Sometimes I forget to understand that my life already contains all of the ingredients for a happy life. I know good health is an illusory truth for all of us and we really can't count on it but for me takes center stage putting everything else in my life in the background, low on the priority list, making it unclear I will ever get to any of it. I object. Other people wonder what they're doing next weekend; their health is not part of the equation. What can I say. I want to be like everybody else who gets the flu and can ride it out and knows the pattern of it and can kind of ignore it but for the discomfort it provides. But I am not that girl; when I am sick, there is no pattern.

I get in my funks and I panic and I feel so far away like I am floating on a raft farther and farther away from the land where my life and loved ones reside. I have to remember that as long as I can pick up the phone, which I don't do enough of, I will remain safely on land. It's true. The more time I spend with my people, my angels, my family, the better I feel. As much as my alone time makes for better writing because it enables me the time to dig deep and scour my soul, scrape out the dregs of my crippling fears it also forces me to feel them. I could use a little less of that as much as I believe in the organic process of emotion; trusting myself when I am sad to be sad that I will stop being sad when I stop being sad and I will definitely stop being sad. Trusting myself when I haven't worked out in a few days for no reason not to beat myself up, the urge will come back. Trusting myself when I've been binge eating to enjoy it and not feel guilty because I will be back on the healthy wagon soon enough. Same thing with my emotions. I believe that I will always regain my balance and my control but I know that a little comic relief never hurt anyone and I never fail to get that when I am with any of the above people.

And remembering that I say that now when I have regained control over my emotions but when I don't have it, I really don't have it and making that phone call can seem like the hardest thing in the world. Either way though, there is absolutely no risk of me ever jumping off a building. I would not consider cutting shorter what I fear will already be too short. Not a chance. And also realizing that I probably wouldn't be able to count the amazing gifts I have been given in the way of my people and experiences and my ability to delight in the simple pleasures of life if I didn't see death, if I wasn't so sick. Silver lining? So sky diving maybe. Hang gliding of course. Jumping off a building, not a chance.