wondering where i am

i always thought that i was getting to know
myself better the older i got...
i definitely have changed since i was younger
but this new middle age me is still as perplexing
as the me in my 20s and 30s

i have more aches and pains than ever before
aleve has become an important part of my diet
i play "trombone" with the books that i'm reading
i think more about death now than ever before

the last point is more complex than just the anxiety
of fretting about whether there is an afterlife or not
a heaven or a hell
or if i'm coming back as another person
or a fly

this anxiety is over loss
which means i'm not anxious over my death
but the death of those around me
paradoxically, it seems that i'm not afraid
of death after all but
i'm afraid of living
living through loss

i am the youngest of my siblings
theoretically, i will outlive them all
because i am significantly younger than they are
i am so used to following
i am so used to being the one who trails along
being told what to do
being loved and loving

i was re-reading _the return of the king_
in this book there is a scene in which sam
is trying to resuscitate frodo after he was bitten
by the spider shelob
sam yells at frodo telling him not to go
indeed, he says to frodo "don't go where i cannot follow"

i feel that i will replay this scene for the rest of my
life
the people that i love
that i follow will leave
and i cannot follow them
one of my sisters is having this issue
right now with the loss of my father
because just like her oldest daughter
passing away some 12 years ago
my sister is reminded once again of
the inertness of her position
of the imposed 'stillness' of life

i felt it too when i was beside him
when he took is very last breath
and i felt the numbness creep
from my brain to my feet

i'm sure some scientists somewhere
will tell me that it is all chemicals
a "natural" and "evolutionary" development
to help me cope...to get by...to keep on living...
to deal with the idea of not following
there is little comfort in that for me
to be reminded that i am only soft tissue and
that my longing is just gray matter
and neurons firing
that not being able to follow is natural
because it secures survival
because for these scientists...that's what
it's all about anyway

not for me
never for me

but the concept of god or an afterlife
is hardly any better...
people have concocted some wild theories and stories
that we take to be true
leaving one group of people yelling
at the other
it's noisy being in the middle of all of this
ideological dissonance
it still doesn't feel "good" or reassuring
because the longing to follow and yet
not being able to is there
and will always be there

i didn't want him to leave
and i miss him
i don't want my mother to leave
nor my sisters
nor my brother
my friends
my partner...if only he thought of me this way...which i am unsure of
and much too afraid to really ask

this is not about being alone
this is about access
about a preemptive lacking
that i know will be coming
so maybe things haven't changed as much as i
have imagined
maybe age while dulling
my body like a river stone: smooth and rounded
sharpens my inner hearing
to what my mind and my body are trying to tell me
through voices that extend way past the box
of scientific discourse
and chemicals
and nature

the voices that only a young body can suppress
there is a spirituality
about all of this
about following
about the love that creates the desire
to follow
maybe that's what keeps us going
anticipation of not being able to follow
and waiting for a resurrection that we know
will never happen