MY OWN WALKING - Journal August 2024

The ground on which I currently stand has, shall we say, somewhat shifted in the last month. What once felt sure and firm, well, relatively sure and firm, has now been shaken and stirred a bit. By the heart attack obviously, and the moment when I almost lost consciousness and wondered if that were to happen, would I ever awaken from it? And if I did awaken, where would I be?  Was 'I' a term only an person still alive could use?

Ever since it's all been about trying to get me and my heart back into being simpatico. With the help of a diet, the NHS and several drugs I now take daily. I've even bought a pill box dispenser, just to be sure I don't forget. Because forgetting in my mind now, is synonymous with death. Perhaps not instant death, but deleterious death, through mental or physical neglect or decline. To die, is to forget about life, as it falls behind the descending safety curtain of what is 'unknown.'

I've not been noticeably more morbid nor saddened by my closer proximity with death. Though I've had these moments of panic, when my breathing relaxed too much, or when meditating my sense of slowed down being, was too much. Kicking off a frightened gasp of deep breathing, as though I'd just pulled myself out of the water, and yet again saved myself from drowning. These moments of fearfulness, appear now to have largely ceased. 

I believe some of the fruits of my Buddhist practice did kick in, and I am noticeably at greater ease with what happened.  Though I do instinctively mistrust any self diagnosed equanimity, that could so easily be emotional numbness, or alienated indifference, performing a masquerade. I might be more rattled deep down in my unconscious, than my psyche will allow me to experience. If so, I expect that will bubble to the surface in the fullness of time 

This morning I could sense something was emotionally nearer the surface than previously. I switched off my early morning TV distractions and started writing.  Writing I find can be a good way to focus ones listening, as you attempt to put into words suggestive feelings. I could feel this delicate underlying yet sharply frosty touch of my own grief. Grief for myself, but also for those I love. There is also the loss of certainty, at least imaginatively. That my once operational mode of life going on and on, cannot now be easily restored in the wake of my life so very nearly ceasing.

Yet there is my own unreadiness, my own unwillingness, to give up and die. I don't want to go just yet. Which implies there are things I feel I need to do. And that raises more than just my survival, but my surviving in order to do what? Whatever length of time I now can envisage my life stretching out to, has to be dreamed as provisional, in sepia not full colour.

What do I want to make of what is left of my life?  What is there yet to make of me? These are opening questions, with as yet, no sense of the direction of travel indicated. But then Hubby and I have both been so damned busy lately. One might be forgiven for thinking it was specifically designed to distract, were it not for it being planned many months ago. Though perhaps it was conveniently placed by the cosmos, to stop us dwelling too heavily on the import of any prognosis.

I now have a hefty ring bound book the hospital gave me - The Heart Manual. It reassures you that a heart attack is survivable, and any imagined sequence of progressively worsening heart incidents, is not an inevitable outcome. I met one indomitable old women the other day, who'd had a heart attack twenty five years ago, and with care and medication had had no further occurances. A heart attack doesn't have to be treated as the beginning of the end, even though ultimately it is part and parcel of the train journey we are on. And there are near or distant buffers that will be hit one day.

Life, if you let it, could so easily become one long drawn out preparation for death and departure. Our slightly wistful way of living as if death is nowhere near, is a strategy, and it does have its uses. I don't feel concerned about any legacy my existence might leave. What will carry on for a while, will be the memories of those who I've loved, in the friendships and acquaintances I leave behind. Until all recollection ceases, when they too pass away.

Anything more than that will be just the froth, the magnificent imaginings, of my ego. We all want our lives to matter to someone, but to history? that would be too self agrandising. Few of us ever matter to history, and even those that do go down in the annals of it. cannot control how or what they are remembered for. Many people are remembered for something they never actually said or did, for a memorable myth. And I imagine that must be annoyingly ironic.

A heart attack that you survive intact, however fortunate, is nonetheless a foreshadowing of the future, whether near or far. It does make each day feel that bit more precious. I find it harder to make broad ranging assumptions about what the future holds, and whether I'll still be around to take part in it. I file things now under - maybe.

Though I am feeling much more appreciative of what I do have. Grateful for what I can still do. However long the life I have left proves to be, it might as well be embraced and enjoyed.