Things Can Get Worse

Don't ever tempt the fates by saying, "I don't think my life could get any worse."  Trust me.  It can.  

I'm breaking down.  I am collapsing.  I don't sleep.  Mine is a life of anxiety and worry and problems not easily solved.  My mother.  The house.  And now, it seems, much, much more.  

I've thought I had made good decisions and had treated people with a kindness that would bring me a peaceful, stable existence.  But there are no guarantees and nothing that can't be undone.  The carpenter suggests I sell the house.  Then, "Or, you know. . . you could just live in it for the next few years until you die."  He suggests I have the moxie to end my own life when the time comes. 

He's a cheery guy.  His advice is simply practical.  

My mother may go on like this for years.  I don't know.  It has become a Beckett play.  

I thought for a moment of being free, of unburdening myself of all the things I own, the things I've collected, the entrapments of the thickly textured life I have created.  Have I become like one of Faulkner's failing characters?  

I could sell everything and live in a small seaside room somewhere with other surrendered characters making photographs and writing, eating and drinking and watching the water and the moon free of all possessions and responsibilities.  

Most of the time now, I feel a slight nausea.  I tremble.  I am not strong enough for the world anymore.  My body is broken and now. . . .my spirit.  

But I know it can get worse.  And may.  I will not fool myself about that.  

I am sorry to bother you with this.  You cannot help me out of this jam, of course, and you must feel one of two ways--frustrated or jubilant.  There are many who will find some pleasure in my pain, I think, if only slightly and unspoken.  Those who feel otherwise will be forced to turn their attention elsewhere.  It is a natural reaction.  

Let me post this malaise and see if I might not write something else.