The Luxury of Breathing

I'm aware this is not what you signed up for. I'm totally with you and I completely apologize. 
 I'm sorry when this avalanche called my daily routine caved in; you were knocked down for holding my hand.

You may be right; I have been neglectful, selfish with my time, a bad girlfriend. I promise next time to be more considerate. But right now the world has raped and ravaged and left me for the flies, and frankly, I'm too tired for self-preservation.

So if I leave you angry and hungry and yearning for more, I apologize in advance. 
It's just that so much has sucked the marrow from my bones already--I'm hollowed. And I'm sorry. 
But at this point I don't have enough leftover for someone to take another piece, then tell me it’s my fault for not saving the biggest slice cause I'm fucking crumbs right now.

Your girl that's got it under control, the one that gets shit done, and makes it all right and gives and gives and gives--is suddenly spent. 
And the view of the future from beneath this burden is clearly uncertain. Somehow all those happy endings once relied upon have crashed and burned and I'm left standing in the ashes of the aftermath--
of futures fallen in mid-flight.

But I do care. And you are special. And I do need you. 
It's just that the world is really coming down on me right now and I can only give so much. You call it selfish but I call it human. And maybe, just maybe, enjoying this day off was not in the cards. But there is indeed, a method to this madness. 
Whether or not you choose to accept it; there is a context to this scenario. Just please bare with me--Just grab hold and hang on tight because if you let go right now, it will surely be curtains for me.

Please understand, this is not an attempt to play on your sympathies--But admitting to feeling a bit crowded is putting it mildly. 
I just feel the need to go there, to justify myself. 
See, there are these few thousand distractions that keep pushing my boundaries inches from a breaking point of which, I assure you, is not a becoming side of my shining personality. 
I know my absence is hard to take and my silences keep your heart unhinged, maybe even teetering on the brink of un-welcomed vulnerability, but this is not my intention. 
And pardon me if I seem a bit preoccupied but I'm juggling daggers here. No--this is not an illusion.

On the surface the waters are placid. Occasional I’ll allow for a ripple to rise.
But these tiny whirlpools are really tidal waves carefully repressed. 
Beneath these cool waters the undertow is deadly...and if I'm not careful I'll get sucked below the surface and dragged across the coral with no one to know the wiser. I'm drowning here but never to the point of complete relinquishment. That resiliency my father instilled resuscitates me just in time to catch my breath and prepare me for the next tidal wave. 
After all, someone needs to follow in his footsteps.

Then there's this separate issue of single-handedly overseeing thirty-two employees on a shoestring budget that spreads even my talents thinner than cling wrap. And if acting as mother, teacher, cheerleader, dealmaker, newsbreaker, negotiator, guru and translator to these people weren’t not enough, I as the ultimate mediator, must translate their stresses to my phantom boss. The one who is barely there. That only exists in figments between "where's the money?" and smoke breaks. And back at the ranch the phone's ringing off the hook, my inbox is loaded and since and of this very moment I have 37 unread messages to attend to. Low and behold, a text from you: "you alive?" I laugh to myself. "GOOD QUESTION." 
Then the midday madness returns and I barely have time look up much less indulge in the rubbery slice of coagulated cheese called lunch that grows cold between incessant requests for unnecessary help at my desk. The children are restless, pulling at my skirt, interrupting the conference call between father, banker, lawyer and doctor that will address my father's soon to be forgotten future. These days we need two sets of ears.

So the daughter with her head screwed on straight is appointed the task of mediating his lifesavings and must attend to the fact that my little sister needs 35K for her new house wired to California by tomorrow, but dad simply can't understand why? Dad’s not against it. Really. He just doesn't remember ever saying yes. So he must be convinced, yet again, that this is not a scam, and Jenny is no longer a hippie with dreadlocks, but indeed, has prepared like a good Greek daughter and like me, knows what she is doing...

We all know that Posterior Cortical Atrophy can manifest symptoms alarmingly similar to this other little problem we call Alzheimer's Disease, and on that note, he's asking whatever happened to the Advanced Directives--you know, those convenient little death directions you give your doctor while you're still living and coherent enough to instruct your loved ones how NOT keep your body alive if your brain is dead. Yes it is I, the chosen one, that’s been granted the honors. Leave it to the daughter with her head screwed on straight with the responsibility of assessing whether or not my father's life is worth living because there WILL be a time, experts claim,
that he’ll forget how to breathe.

And it bares repeating I'm not looking for sympathy here--I mean, it would all be much worse if Dad were coherent enough to comprehend the reality of the situation: That the lifesavings he sacrificed for the sake of his offspring is dwindling along with his memory of what happened about 30 seconds ago...
As his favorite phrase "Wait, what were we just talking about?" becomes
a mantra. And we all laugh and so does he, but inside we are all slowly dying.

Thankfully Dad has it slightly better because he doesn't recall the pain of forgetting. But the irony strikes those less fortunate like a boomerang. Blind-siding us. The most dire reality being no matter how meticulously one plans, no matter how carefully one prepares, insures, shelters, scrimps, saves and sacrifices--futures have this way of falling in mid-flight. They crash and burn and spare no survivors. And that utopian freedom that supposedly exists in early retirement is exchanged for the confines of ones own limitations: 
The inability to read...to recognize a face...to lace a shoe...to breathe.

No this was definitely not what we signed up for. This inevitable countdown that mounts like a tidal wave before us, promising that fateful day when Dad forgets who we are. 
So for the sake of his three daughters, his reasons to be, he worries. Constantly. Then he passes his worry on to me, the daughter most like him: The one with her head screwed on straight. Even if he forgets who I am my mind will pick up where he left off, adopting this never-ending responsibility I couldn't shake if I tried. This is his blood working through me. Inevitably, the daughter he worked so hard to raise the right way, will assist in the plans he devised in advance. So when the time comes I’ll be prepared. Armed with the knowledge of exactly how, when, and in what circumstance, measures must be taken to end his very life.

So could we please move the conference call up to now, because in five minutes my boss will be back and he'll cast a silently disapproving glance and wonder why the hell I'm utilizing work time for my own personal pleasure. And he'll bid me his famous "enjoy your day off" with sarcastic intonation as he saunters out the door ending his day before most leave for lunch but I digress, because this dedication is to you, my love. This one is about us, and all the reasons why I may not be with you in spirit.

So here are my Advanced Directives: Find solace in this heartbeat. Let this be evidence, tangible proof; the ultimate assurance that I am with you. Even if my mind seems lost in a tidal wave of expectation and the undertow sucks me down and I'm left weathered and hollowed and shaken—Trust I may emerge a bit less idyllic, but no less your girl. 


All I need is your gentle reminder that life is something I can handle. That I'm strong, and wise, and good like that, and as always I’ll bounce back in my usual fashion. Deep I know these things. But also remember the strong woman that's got it all under control, is no less a daughter afraid of loosing her Dad. And on days like this, sometimes even the girl with her head screwed on straight needs a shoulder to cry on. To be reminded to breathe. 
Because not everyone, my love,
has this luxury.