naked singularity

from wikipedia.org:

In general relativity, a naked singularity is a gravitational singularity without an event horizon. The singularities inside black holes are always surrounded by an area which does not allow light to escape, and therefore cannot be directly observed. A naked singularity, by contrast, is observable from the outside.

i went to see one of my old people today. i see him every thursday, usually in the afternoon. but i had some extra time this morning, and i was already out on visits, anyway, so i went. it was not a good time. but, i did find out later that he was having some trouble with his blood sugar, and nothing seriously bad wrong was happening. he's fine.

what i saw in his room, or more accurately, what i heard, threw me for a loop of epic proportions. he was having a hard time breathing, and because of (unknown to me) the drop in bloodsugar, was kind of loopy and confused. he sounded like he was breathing through a hundred pounds of wet sand, and struggling to get the job done. the last breaths i heard come out of my father sounded just like that. i gave him communion, prayed with him, and left as quickly as i could. i called the office, and relayed the info that john was having a tough morning, and that it might be nice if a clergy person ran by to check on him later.

mostly, i think i just needed to hear a familiar voice and know that the person on the other end of the line was hearing what i was saying. luckily, my favorite co-worker took the call, and said the right things. and then asked if i was ok. and then i started getting teary. before, i was just freaking out quietly in my head, willing myself to calm the eff down, and not spiral. after i hung up the phone, i pulled into a parking lot, parked the car, put my head down, and promptly and efficiently lost my shit. for fifteen minutes. and then, i put on my big sunglasses, blew my nose, and went back to my office.

there are days when the weight of losing a father is especially hard to carry, and there are days when you can almost forget that the load is there. loss is an innate part of this life. it is inevitable. and sometimes, it's impossible to ignore. and sometimes, the sounds are deafening, and come at you in full decibels, demanding that you remember and feel all those sharp edges, again. it's like dropping a straight pin into a bag, and forgetting about it, until the day you go rooting in the bottom of the bag, and get the bastard lodged right in your cuticle. at least, that's how i try to make sense of the fact that even after thirteen years, death can still seem so fresh and terrible, all over again. it's frustrating. it was kind of scary, too. it's been a long time since i cried that hard over all of that. a very long time, indeed...years, maybe. but in a matter of 15 minutes on this rainy morning, i was 18 again, and in a parking lot, in another white car, sobbing into the steering wheel because my father was dead.

i'm ok. just needed to get it out.



mil besos,

rmg

sounds like home

i'm consistantly amazed at the wisdom i ignored as a teenager. occasionally, that old wisdom comes screaming back into my ears, and oddly enough, is carried in my own voice.

i remember laying across my brass bed, all of fifteen years old, wondering what it all meant. and i remember hearing neil young in my stereo speakers. the fact that his voice is not the best, that his lyrics sometimes are cryptic and bizarre, that no one i knew was listening to him, that made neil young that much cooler to me. i can see myself sprawled against my pink-striped sheets, agonizing over my journal, and feeling the "hurt-so-good"-ness of "harvest", and knowing that it didn't matter that i didn't have words to put with any of my feelings. it was enough to just feel them.

there was a time in my life when i pretended that i didn't have crushes, or unrequited loves, or ridiculous "cinderella"-esque fantasies. for most of high school, i pretended to be above that kind of thing, at least in my head. and for most of my 20's, i just worked myself into such a frenzy about...work, that it didn't seem like i would ever settle down, and figure out what my heart really, really wanted.

and so, here i sit, at 31, feeling all these gross and disjointed and angsty feelings that i should have felt fifteen years ago. you can only hit the snooze bar on parts of your life so many times, before they crawl into your bed and demand that you deal with them like a sane and rational adult. it's a hard reality to finally see. i always took getting married and having kids for granted, like i wouldn't have to try and be present for those things to happen. i'm realizing more and more that the more cerebral i made my ideas of love and loving, the less and less real those ideas became.

i know a few things, on this cold and rainy day. i want to marry a nice man who loves Jesus. i want to have lots and lots of babies, and live in a house full of music and good smells. what i have right now, is a head and heart full of a 15 year old who wants to listen to her records and figure out what all this means. even thought the pink striped sheets are long gone, and all that impossible hair is being shot through with gray, i think i'm going to let the 15 year old drive the heart bus for a while, because the 31 year old driving the head bus is making a pig's ear out of this whole "adult relationship" thing.

mil besos,
rmg