Walking Backwards

I don't know why, but things around here have not slowed down despite the best efforts of Joe and myself to make them. Instead, we are getting busier and our lives have become more dramatic. Dramatic because those around us are all going through some sort of heartrending personal tragedy or some moment in their lives where we either almost lose them or they lose something of themselves. I think I have a harder time dealing with the problems of my loved ones than I have in dealing with my own. My own problems I can break down and compartmentalize. I can form a plan and come up with steps of what to do. I can stand the idea of being injured or losing myself, but the thought of the people I care about being vulnerable and unprotected and hurt causes me great anguish.

Right now I can barely sit at the computer because two of the people I love aren't perfect or they aren't in the perfect situation, but I have done all I can and I need to let them sort out their lives with a clear head space. One of my friends was in a horrific car accident yesterday after she left my house. She and her two year-old son, who was in the car with her, are sore, but fine. Their car was crushed, the truck that they hit was flipped over. She called me to tell me they had been in an accident and I set out on foot (but was picked up by a kindly stranger) just to make sure they were okay. Seeing the state of her car as I pulled up took years off of my life. I had to keep touching them to make sure they were really there. My other friend, who I want to be with to hold her hand and to make her know that we will be there for everything, is checking out of the hospital today with her second child. She went into labor Tuesday night all alone because her husband had a psychotic break the night before and is now in an institution and out of their lives. I keep filling my head with things that need to be said and done, but all I can do is look at her infant daughter and promise that, whatever they need, we will be there for them.

While I know that, as humans, we are unable to control the fates of ourselves and those around us, I can't entirely accept that notion. The idea that these wonderful people, who have brought such joy into our lives and who are vibrant individuals, have such mercurial existences is an idea that I cannot wrap my brain around. So I sit, shaking my fist at the universe for almost extinguishing those bright flames who have warmed my soul. Capricious fate has left me looking over my shoulder and hugging my loved ones tighter for I worry that they may leave me.