Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween is over

Halloween has been one of my favorite holidays. Did you know that it was the Irish that were primarily responsible for importing All Hallows Eve? We're all just pagans at heart, I feel, waiting for a chance to bark at the moon or some crazy shit. It's healthy, and, yes, I know that pagan's don't bark at the moon. Ed Gein would put on his best skin suit and dance in the moonlight, banging pots and howling. That's taking things a bit too far. Well, what do you expect when your mother tells you that all women are evil? Remember kiddies: syphilis, gonorrhea, and unwanted children are the wages of sin!

In other news, I have been feeling somewhat better. So many times I let myself get out of control with confronting my failings and imperfections. I do it to the point where I just don't feel right about anything at all. Sometimes it works: I get the kick in the ass that I need to change or do what needs to be done. Other times it doesn't: I really feel like a square peg crammed into a fat man's ass. Bad analogy...anal...ogy. Heh. Anyhooter, I've got to just do something different with my life instead of cursing myself for being fallible and for getting older.

It was my late sister, Bonnie's, birthday today, which made Halloween a bit more of a reverent occasion. Yeah, even on the Saturday that most kids went out, but wasn't the official day--it still reminded me of her. What I did this evening was to take my fat body on a hike up a local canyon and sit on a rock ledge for a dose of meditation. It got me thinking about the afterlife. We've all got our own ideas and beliefs about what goes on in the hereafter, but how can one really know? I think the best one can do is come to a relative conclusion based on faith, or lack thereof. The evidence in the cold, hard world would hit a dead end right after the last breath.

I have considered this at times, despite my beliefs in "cake and ice cream heaven". I guess if that were the case, then love and kindness is all the more important right now. You can't get away from the greatest commandment. Hell can reach you anywhere, while getting you nowhere at all. I've let my loss of my sister affect my state of being. This is natural, but I need to really think about what the rest of my life should be like without her around, rather than let it all unravel. I'm a lot like her in some ways and I get worried that I will self destruct as well, given the right circumstances.

I have to remember something, that I am capable of feeling great love for myself and others. This was evident in my last cancer exam that I went to earlier this month. When my oncologist and her nurse came into the room to see me and give me my report, I felt like I had done good. You could see how much happiness it gives them to have a patient do well. Really, the love that I feel for my doctors and the care that I feel from them has been one of the highest levels of love that I have ever felt. They saved my bacon. That is some serious shit. I have to remember those moments to know that my life can be about positive things and not just be a string of tragedies, depression, and loneliness. I just wish I could have realized all of this when I was young and pretty. It's a bit hard to carry out new plans when you are not a spring chicken anymore. But, hey, you know that I thrive on these kinds of odds, right? I think I shall start by doing some writing and recording again. I haven't done that in a long time. It's a start.

5 comments:

Christielli said...

I like this post. It's all sorts of hopeful, which is so up my alley.

I think you are right about the afterlife: we can never know what's going to happen there (I hope for cake and ice cream too) so what we do on earth is so so important.

Glad that you are doing well, and I hope there's all sorts of awesomeness up ahead for you.

Julie Kwiatkowski Schuler said...

Now is a great time to start over. Lots of people are doing it. Hey, maybe it will become a zeitgeist!

rawbean said...

Great post indeed. Glad to see you are feeling better. I'm really glad you have great outdoor space around you were you can go and have some thinking time. That's so important.

Regarding afterlife - I wish humans would just admit that we are not sophisticated enough to know what will happen when we die. That's why I'm not religious!

The Grunt said...

Thanks everyone. You may not think that your comments mean something to me but they do--a whole lot.

Jules said...

It's nice to see you're feeling more positive about things and have a new outlook Grunty! xo