I'm a Survivor, Damn it

If I were to be remembered for anything in all of the friend groups I've been part of in my long life, I think I'd be remembered for simply knowing that I'd survive them all. All those friends, I knew, would pass on before me. Being young, I didn't really take it seriously, of course. That was a lo-o-o-ng way off in the future, after all, and I was a naturally ebullient, sunny, clown of a personality. As a Libra, all of the glasses in my life were full to overflowing, despite how many times life upturned them.

It's hard for me to say this, but after the two years since my wife's death, my best friend's death, the death of my only true big brother (not blood, but my brother all the same), as well as the death of three other friends and the loss of two beloved cats, I'm gutted in the most true and absolute sense. In a word, I'm lonely. Other friends and family members have passed over the past several years too, and all of these losses add up to what is known as accumulative grief. It's a terrible, gut wrenching thing. A high colonic of the heart.

I know that at my age I'm supposed to expect continued loss, but no one tells you that when you're young. We know we'll lose our grandparents, aunts and uncles, and parents, but we're young, and even those seems abstract to us. The thought of loss is impossible for us to grasp, because we're young. We're not supposed to think about the death of those we love. We're invincible, and so is everyone we know. And besides, isn't life long?

Then, sometimes, something happens to us that blows us out of our halcyon reveries. For me, it was the death of my 22 year-old husband when I was just 18 and our son only two weeks old. After that initiation, grief buffeted me like sea waves on the shore. Death became a constant in the movie of my life. So much so that I became almost immune to it. I scabbed over, and felt little sadness when yet another loved one died. I was numb to loss. My rose-colored glasses kept shiny from repeated polishing, I grew cheerfully philosophical. Until the death of my musical mentor in 2001, that is. I'm still not over his death, and what's more, I don't think I ever will be.

I think it would be easier to recover from my recent losses if I wasn't so destitute. The laundry room floods every week because I can't afford to call a plumber. I struggle every month to make my rent, which causes terrible ongoing stress and its health consequences, and my car is on its last leg. I live in absolute fear of the day it will give out altogether. I work remotely, but that too has been cut back by the company I work for.

I'm turning 72 in a couple of weeks, and as hard as I try to manifest some little sense of security in the future, it's hard to maintain that hope because I no longer have friends. Not really. And the few I have, I'm not able to join for an occasional meal out, much less a concert or the local art fair, wine walk, etc. My greatest fear is what will happen to my autistic adult son, whom I support, when I die. It's pretty tragic when a mother has to hope her son will pass before she does so that he won't end up on the street when she dies. But I still have my rose colored glasses and hope for better days to come. I still believe in miracles and karma. 

So being the last living survivor isn't all it's cut out to be! Right about now, I wish I'd died young like I thought I would, as a troubled, self-destructive rock star. Nah, I wasn't cut out for that. I'm a survivor!

Damn it.