Moving On

It’s the pills! Ding ding ding ding! Come on down! You have won the $64,000 Question! The same medication that has tamed my runaway heartbeat has apparently also slowed my brain function to a crawl. It has taken me three months to connect the warning with the side effect; “These might make you tired” to “Why am I so sleepy!?” But as I struggled into consciousness this morning, those three words (is a conjunction considered one word or two?) formed in my brain like a slow drip, getting bigger and bigger until it plopped into the sink where thoughts gather briefly before sliding down the drain. I reached for the laptop to catch them before they slipped away forever. I think about the paper I’m not wasting and if everybody stops using paper will all the trees come back? Will we run out of water instead? Outside, the rain is falling not like a slow drip at all but a constant, heavy downpour and it doesn’t seem likely we will ever run out of water.

The remote control is nearby and the TV lights up. A crowd is gathered in the same rain. An unrelenting list of names is being read and I remember: it is September 11th. No humor in that. More water, this time from an internal source that never seems to go dry. I look at the people remembering lost loved ones and I wonder how they can get out of bed at all. It is a testament to human resilience that a person can suffer a crushing, devastating loss and yet manage to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. It humbles me. I remember Joe who mowed my lawn once; our older son’s best friend who is now memorialized in a tattoo on his arm. Rest easy, Joe. You left many behind who still think of you.

So I’m struggling a little; so what?! My children are healthy. (Pooh pooh) My husband comes home every night. (Pooh pooh pooh) I am piecing together a year of small jobs: a two hour class here, another there; a few hours a week on a project that won’t need my full attention until next May; a short performance on Saturday followed by an audition; new headshots; a new short film that is almost finished; four more days on my latest free gym trial … All possibilities open. On TV they have covered the football scores and are turning to the rainy US Open Tennis Tournament, worrying about Nadal’s knees and Federer’s advantage. It hurts me to see how easily the world moves on. And yet, perhaps, that is the greatest honor we can bestow upon these lost souls. Just keep moving.