Wednesday, June 3, 2009

What would you do if you had less than 25 days to live?

I have to say as the time ticks on I am sacred to freaking death. I go from trying to normalize the whole thing to getting panicy about all the things I haven’t done.

I started looking at all the Christmas presents I have stashed away today. I am a compulsive present buyer – when I see something on sale or perfect for someone , I will buy it and stash it – making Christmas so much more manageable financially and with less stress. I started to think that well – if I am not here – then my family is going to be stuck with a bunch of gifts with no names on them – or worse yet – finding them years later and wondering what to do.

I’ve so many projects I have started and not fully completed – scrap book gift for hubby, photo albums from life overseas – literally hundreds of photos which would be meaningless to anyone else, patchwork and needlepoint, not to mention writing projects and websites I am still fiddling with.

What the hell do you do? Try and finish everything? Go mad with the flurry of activity? Or try and capture some sort of memories with your family, your kids, the people you love? I have been so tetchy lately, and I know horrible to be around – especially for my sweet kids. Probably a combination of the lack of food and stress, hormones – and stress….

What would you do if you had less than 4 weeks of life?

No-one can actually ever tell – the good old bus might mow you down tomorrow. I have attempted to live with little regret, to tell people what I feel about them. I can’t see myself doing a mass mail out of “I love yous” to people. I would hope that if something did happen and I died – that people would know; that they would already have that closure.

What are my regrets? I guess I don’t have long sweeping ones like wasting my life on stuff – they are specific things.

I regret I didn’t insist both my sisters be bridesmaids at my wedding. The material for their dresses still sits in the bottom of my huge material cupboard.

I regret losing touch with my best friend from Uni. We just drifted apart after she was posted up north to teach and married. Different lives, just drifted away. She’s a stranger to me now when we see on another. We used to share everything, know everything about each other, get in and out of the most terrible scrapes and it stabs me in the heart to think it was just.. lost.

I have traveled extensively, experienced life at all angles, had crazy love affairs, dangerous and mad times done extreme adventure pursuits and lived (so far) a pretty outrageous and fortunate life intermixed with incredible crap times and misfortune ( if you could label certain growth periods as misfortune). . I’d be miffed I would have to say – if I never got to see Russia, Turkey or Croatia – we missed them when we lived os.. Hubby was too ill with the treatments for us to get off the beaten track too much by the time we were to see them.

I’d be particularly sad that I wouldn’t be round to help my daughter – who at the age of 4 has the sprit of a tiger and attracts trouble with a giant T. She’s going to need a heap of help as she grows up.

I go between being scared witless to being numb. The worst thing about it all is that I have no-one to share it with. I will tell the story of my family in a post soon.. just have to get the emotional strength to revisit all of that awefulness.

I can’t really let on to my partner – hes being supportive and strong and all that and I see the tears in his eyes and desperation every day – he looks at me as though I am going to die – that he will be waving me off and he’ll never see me again. How can I even say that I am scared to him? We both fall apart? Someone has to remain strong.

I’ve not told any of my friends about what I am going to do. Is it so bad that I feel that they wouldn’t understand? That I think the friendships I have are so shallow or judgmental that they would pass judgments? Its not about them – I know that – its about me and my insecurities. I am so crap at this.

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