like hitting snooze

Last night I dreamed that I was dying. I was at the doctor's office for a routine visit and we were looking at my blood in a vial. It was behaving badly: clotting and bubbling up, coiling back on itself. And up there on the doctor's computer screen was an urgent notice flashing that I had hematoglobula-something, which meant that I was going to die really soon.

I was pushed out into the parking lot in a wheelchair, where I sat in the baking sun and cried about my kids growing up without their mother. And Stupiddaddy said, "But you'll see them from wherever you are." I conceded that I might, but my point was that they wouldn't be able to see me. And as much as I am fucking them up by being around them, I was going to fuck them up that much more by disappearing.

Then my 94-year-old grandmother showed up, and it became clear to me that I was made to be terminally ill so that I could usher her over to the other side, which gave me a lot of comfort , even though she's a fucking bitch.

I seem to have death on the brain lately, and I'm not sure why. I keep expecting that these ruminations and fantasies will change the way I live, making me kinder and more loving and more appreciative, lighting a fire under my ass to get that novel written, turning me into a seizer of days.

But in practice, it's business as usual. I still snap at my kids and bitch at my husband. I still waste time. Fear is still the boss of me.