Life is pain.
. . . . .


As if I weren't going through enough emotional turmoil...

My uncle called me at work today to tell me that my grandmother is in the hospital again.

To make a long story short, it's her congestive heart failure acting up again, and arthritis in her hip (which is now pretty much completely shot). They're monitoring her but it seems that she'll be heading for a rest home or whatever pretty soon.

I talked to her today on the phone, and tomorrow I'll pay her a visit.

I'm not very close with her, but I am really, really not good at dealing with the whole facing-mortality thing. My uncle tried to pressure me into visiting her tonight, but I would have had to go to the hospital by myself and I just can't handle that.


So I gave her a call instead. She sounded okay but I really don't think she'll live very much longer.

When she passes on... I will be relieved for her. I will miss her a little... but she's not living a very happy or good life, these past few years. She has outlived all her siblings, her husband, and most of her friends. I can't imagine what it must be like to endure those kinds of losses... and I don't ever want to. I can't bear it. I'm emotionally fucked up enough.

Anyway -- I don't really know what to do with myself, because the older I get, the less I can handle emotional trauma like this. All I want to do is curl up in a ball and fucking cry. I want someone to comfort me and tell me that it will be alright, and for me to actually believe it. Sometimes I really envy people who are religious, because they have beliefs that comfort them. I don't have that anymore. I had it when I was a kid, and now it's gone, never to return. Someone must have slipped me an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, because I've been cast out of that garden forever.

. . . . .