Prepare to Die

“When you’re dead I don’t want to be homeless and alone!”  I said to Mike the other day.  He loves that kind of clear communication.  Pure primal fear rant, adorned in lawyerly logic words juiced with feminine hormone howl hurled at him full force.

“Welcome home, honey.  How was your trip?”

Yada yada, improvement science, saving lives, patient provider KPI metric data trend chart something. System, system, system you remember Ian from the Thai food place?

“Great honey.  That’s so wonderful.  We’re gonna die! I’m gonna die homeless and alone if we don’t change everything about everything, now.  Plus, I can’t effing live like this.  We have to tear down and re-build.  Or maybe renovate.  But not spend one more dime.  Did you order these brand name garbage bags? Send them back.  We are on a budget!!!!

“The budget is zero, except for these sunglasses I needed.  They were on sale.  Plus also the kitchen remodel, which I’m going to probably actually die (on the inside) if I have to spend one more sleepless night imagining myself in a kitchen that is so much better than how our actual kitchen is.

“And, I have read books that tell me it’s wrong to blame you, but I blame you anyway.  Aren’t you my spouse? My partner? My soulmate?  Aren’t you the one who Did This To Me.  Made me an effing happily dependent stay at home mom and now I’m so damn scared because I’ve gone all in — I am all in with you, with this life, this home, this kid, this dog, this family, this marriage, the whole thing.

“And I have no clue who I am or what I would be without you and all this.  And you will die, and I will die, and I’m not effing prepared.  I’m not prepared to die.  I feel like I’m only just starting to know how to live.  All in, right now.  Fuck the kitchen, the clutter, the fear, the stories.  Living now, with you, as we are, we are okay, our kitchen is okay, we are alive, and some day we will die.  I guess that’s kind of prepared.  I’m gonna keep going.