She Runs Away

You may not see the end of it

But luckily she comes around

It isn't what she talks about

It's just the way she is

(...and she says)

"Ooh darlin' don't you know

The darkness comes and the darkness goes"

(she says)

"Ooh babe why don't you let it go?

Happiness aint never how you think it should be so"

I mystified the simple life

I covered up with consciousness

I saw myself and broke it down

'Til nothing more was left

She saw the symptoms right away

And spoke to me in poetry

"Sometimes the more you wonder why

The worse it seems to get"

(...and she says)

"Ooh darlin' don't you know

The darkness comes and the darkness goes"

(she says)

"Ooh babe why don't you let it go?

Happiness aint never how you think it should be so"

She runs away

She runs away...

And then you know there comes a time

You need her more than anything

You may believe yours are the wounds

That only she can heal

Then everything will turn around

And she becomes so serious

What she chose to offer you

Was all that you could have

(...and she says)

"Ooh darlin' don't you know

The darkness comes and the darkness goes"

(she says)

"Ooh babe why don't you let it go?

Happiness aint never how you think it should be so"

She runs away

- Duncan Sheik

Had my quaintly-termed "alumni" group last night. Brought the laptop and showed the 4-minute LifeAbridged movie with my music to the group. Cried more in that group than I ever have in public... EVER. Marking an anniversary of death (at least for me) makes you go back and experience those last few hours all over again - and that is not time I necessarily ever want to relive. Don't get me wrong - it was an honor that Sam chose me to share her life and her death. Given the circumstances, I can't say I'd change anything. It was an honor to walk her to the threshold of whatever happens next. And I acknowledge the incredible gift that gave me: perspective. Because all that mundane crap the majority of people seem to think is so important means nothing. Nothing life throws at me from this moment on can intimidate or scare me - I held my wife as she took her last breath, and a month later hugged my father goodbye for the last time. And at the risk of sounding like a raving egomaniac, since I'm still breathing and raising two children on my own, I guess that makes me a fucking titan.

Lots of anger being shared in the group last night. We all have the common quality of having been caregivers for a terminally ill person. A person that would never be able to show any kind of gratitude or reciprocate for all that we did. Selfishly, I thought Sam would pull through, and that she would be there to take care of me when my health failed. I mean let's face it - we ALL will fail at some point. And the lucky ones will have family and close friends who will go to the wall for them. The luckier ones will have a spouse or partner who knows their soul, and who would stay and do whatever needed to be done no matter how incapacitated they became, or how many times they had to change the bedding and wipe up their shit.

I have no doubt that when my time comes, I will have the friendships I've worked hard to foster throughout my life - I will have friends at my side. And I'm pretty sure my kids won't leave me in a ditch somewhere. But I really wanted that insurance, that trump card, that bastion of strength that only a soulmate, a life-partner... a wife... can provide.

In other news, my dog Wiley is the only dog I've ever met who can do a Chevy Chase pratfall while cleaning himself. What the hell, dog? It's not like you aren't already sitting on the damn floor. Ah well. He's comic relief. Which is good, because I tend to brood and listen to depressing, angsty music throughout the majority of the day, and a little random mirth keeps me from carving my wrists up with an X-acto knife.