Living with Fear

As I mentioned before, my creative juices seem to have dried up, my muse has taken a holiday.  I look at a blank page or at a story that needs finishing, and I can't seem to dredge up the motivation to take the necessary steps to make it happen.

Here's what I have come up with.

I've been trying to write about being unable to generate any worthwhile words since my heart attack. Up till now I've been unable to complete a satisfactory essay on the subject.  Even as I write this, I can feel my mind trying to move me away from it. Am I depressed? I've certainly experienced depression over the past few months, times when I can’t generate the energy to do anything productive.  Rather I surf the net, browse Facebook, read books, anything that will push the ultimate mortality facing me out of my mind, as if doing so would make the possibility go away.

For years I have been intellectually resigned to the fact that my life is way closer to ending than I would like.  I've written about it several times, in poems and prose, but when my heart failed, it became real, up close and personal, no more intellectualizing.   It is in the room with me, riding my shoulder wherever I go.  The thing that scares me about it most is the suddenness with which my life could have ended were circumstances just a tiny bit different.  There was no time to prepare, no time to say good bye to everyone, no time to do what needed to be done to help my world go on without me.

That’s the thing about it, the binary nature – on/off – living/dead – no time for anything, whatever the hell that means.  There are many illnesses that are terminal, but they give one time, however short, to accept the inevitability, to … I don’t know … make peace with oneself.  A heart attack is not one of them.

Do I feel better having written this?  Yeah, I think I do.