wrestling angels & demons

we moved. with great difficulty. but we moved.

its hard, oh-so-hard, to keep on the sunny side, when the clouds overhead seem so dark. madam rouge, the evil queen of menses, made her visit early this cycle. day 23. as opposed to day 29 or 30. and she crept in quite stealthily - no OMG-where's-the-heated-frying-pan cramps, no knife wrenching vaginal pain. just 6 days of quasi-hemorhaggic bleeding. not bad. it caught me off guard - no kidding. so much so, that i laughed out loud, when i looked down and saw the evil madam rouge, perched there, looking somewhat dark and sinister.

i have fought this debilitating sadness for a week @ least. an unceasing grief for and invisible loss. one of those times i describe as sensing a collective loss ... i suppose. my intense connection to the internet got cut off, also. i now know how a borg feels when his/her link to the collective gets terminated. liberated. and so very saddened and alone. its humbling, to feel how alone one really exists, in this vast expansive universe. particularly after feeling the protective link of the energy of such a rich collective, so close @ hand.

i decided to disclose, regarding my instructor, who gave me the answer key, when i asked for guidance/help. it began to eat me alive. it made me feel dirty. and dirtier, when i needed to conult said answer key to complete an assignment in a timely fashion. i could not put it out of my head. and so i disclosed. to my admissions advisor. who put me on to the campus director. i hate the role of whistle blower. i do not want to be, roxanne, champion of students @ my college who share the same frustrations as i do regarding the same instructor. i just want to be roxanne, who remains sane, and passes her courses and can complete her assignments successfully and to her standards, without consulting the answer key. does that seem to much to ask? i want to feel clean, about myself. can i?

i have contemplated death, of late. and how it really seems so close @ hand. and how that reality humbles most humans to the point of no return. and of how i think we've got it wrong. i think, sometimes, that extending life artificially, may be the wrong course of action. and that g-d just lets us go .... as a learning experience for us - 'ok, see where that course of action leads you.' i really think that's how we mess stuff up - by refusing to hear the call to death. by denying it with our shallow science. it degrades. dehumanizes. turns organisms into meat slabs and latin procedures.

i see life as a gift - a sacred gift. not something that we bargain away with our machines and medical intelligence. not a flame we keep resuscitating, merely because we lack the strength to forge our own path in the inevitable darkness, thru which each of us must pass. the stark reality of mortality - its what made me so sad, throughout my nursing career. whenever i part from a person, i always think, i wonder if this person will die before i see them again. or if i will.

there but for the grace of g-d go i.

life.