Today is the fourth anniversary of my wife’s death. I had spent part of the day with her as she lay unresponsive in the hospital hospice unit bed, but left a little after mid-afternoon, maybe 4:00 p.m. Sometime after 7:30 p.m., I got a call from a hospice nurse, informing me she had died a short while earlier. I should have stayed until the end.
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More IV fluid around noon today, following this morning’s radiation treatment. I am firmly ensconced in a deep rut of my own making. Unwilling to resist peer pressure—and thinking it would boost my attractiveness—I started smoking around age 15. Attempts to stop failed over the next 35 years until I needed a double heart bypass. That did it. Finally, I quit smoking. But not soon enough to avoid the toll; COPD and lung cancer fifteen years later. It is not hard to admit one’s stupidity when the evidence is obvious and overwhelming. I hope to outlast the cancer, but only if my quality of life improves considerably. I do not need to be able to run marathons; staying awake for 16 hours at a stretch and taking long walks without being out of breath would be a good start, though. Lung cancer is not limited to smokers, of course, but smokers tend to be far more likely to pay the price of dismissing reality until it’s too late.
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Two more ideas for short stories or books began to fester in my mind within the last couple of days. Unlike most of my ideas of late, I took the time to write some notes, so that I might have some of the core concepts readily available if I actually do something other than think about them. One would become a suspense novel/story with heavy psychological and emotional overtones. The other would have the same overtones, but in a context that might seem supernatural; but that might be part of the psychological nature of the story. Both would rely heavily on story lines, but the characters’ thoughts and experiences would influence the story lines considerably. I’m not holding my breath until I complete them; I’ve had hundreds of ideas in the past that prompted me to start writing, but a scant few have ever made it to within striking distance of a short story ending.
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Thinking about my history of writing incomplete fiction makes me realize I live largely inside my head. My physical experiences exist largely to fuel my internal dream world. That being the case, the “quality of life” of which I wrote a few minutes ago should be just fine as-is; all I should need is enough comfort to permit me to daydream. But that’s never enough, is it?
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Mi novia has long told me she thinks I suffer from depression. I waver between agreeing with her…to a limited extent…and denial. Lately, though, I think she is unquestionably right. Her presence in my life is among the few experiences keeping me fully afloat. Absent her loving support, I might crawl into a distant cabin—far, far from people—and wait for the wolves to make their way through the door. I take prescription drugs for anxiety/ depression. I’ve realized recently that they do have an effect on me; when I fail to take them for two or three days running, I become more easily angry and agitated. They do not change the fundamental darkness that resides within, though. I am not perpetually “down” or “sad.” In fact, I’m often cheerful and happy. Yet there’s a dark thread weaving its way through me. I wonder whether the thread can be removed? Or is it just a strand that holds everything together? Or is this entire strand of thought just an expression of self-pity… poor me, I’m depressed? These thoughts—all of them—have a permanent place in my head. Ideally, I could erase them with the flick of a switch. As it stands, it seems I do not need a powerful reason to be depressed—hearing a suggestion that the Doomsday Clock is edging to within seconds to midnight is enough.
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