Well, it’s finally happened. After almost two and a half years, Glenn has covid, which means I’m probably a day or two behind him. Living in a 1000-square-foot condo doesn’t leave a lot of room for quarantining, so here we go.
We’re both fully vaxxed and have had our two boosters, so I’m not worried about dying from Covid, but in our 34 years together I don’t think we’ve ever both been sick at the same time. Covid may not get us, but we’ll see how we do being locked up together for a week. One of us may not survive.
Since neither one of us is feeling that great today we’ve just been sitting here binge-watching The Time Traveler’s Wife and it’s got me thinking. One of the characters in the second episode makes a little speech about how love always ends, and it’s true, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how much you love another person, someday it will end, somehow. Love is impermanent.
Maybe it’s a gift; even though we know that someday it will end, we as humans don’t spend much time dwelling on it. Over the last four years, Glenn & I have spent a lot of time thinking about how much time we may or may not have, but now that I’m feeling better we rarely think or talk about it. Somehow it just doesn’t feel all that real anymore. It’s a gift because you just can’t live in that all the time.
I remember the moment when it all changed for me. I was laying on a stretcher in the hospital hallway and had been throwing up for days, wanting it all to end. Then I just started laughing at how ridiculous everything was. My toe was hurting and I had been wondering if I could die from an infected toenail. It just struck me as funny that I could die from something that insignificant after everything I had been through and done to avoid dying. I was slightly unhinged by that point as I was on a lot of different medications and hadn’t slept for days, but I was finally able to start letting some things go and start healing, and I just laid there laughing like a crazy person.
I think that was the moment that I finally was able to loosen my grip a bit on both life and death and start to hold both of them loosely. Am I going to die? Yup. Do I have more life to live first? Hell yes!
It’s not easy at all though. It takes work. I spend time in meditation every day to calm my mind. I read and study a lot, about any topic that interests me because I want to keep learning and growing. I try not to worry too much about the things I can’t control anyway. I try to find joy every day and stay away from negative energy. Some days it all works great, and some days still suck, but I remind myself that it’s temporary, that tomorrow will be different, and if not tomorrow then maybe the next day, or the day after that.
So yeah, neither life nor love is permanent. I guess what matters is what you do with them while you have them.
I went kayaking this week with a friend. We went out to the Barrowtown Pump Station, just east of Abbotsford. It was devastated by the flood last November but is now a floating forest where you can paddle between the trees and tall grass. It was so cool!
I think it's a perfect illustration of the point I was trying to make.
After the flood, it seemed as though everything was lost, but look at it now - It's full of life and absolutely beautiful!