 At the risk of sounding morose, I’ve been spending a lot of time contemplating mortality – mine and others’ – these past few weeks.
One reason that life and death have been on my mind is because of recent interactions with an aging relative. My last living great aunt just celebrated her 95th birthday, and this milestone seems to have coincided with a rapid decline in her health. She’s in assisted living, can’t walk or use the bathroom on her own, her eyesight and hearing are nearly gone, and most recently she has begun to experience some pretty intense hallucinations, which we’re told is a sign of accelerating dementia.
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 In November, I wrote a post I called, "An open letter to my teen-age son." It was exactly what it sounds like – a letter, addressed to my kid. I think it was an especially effective piece of writing, and I enjoyed expressing my thoughts in that format. Since then, I’ve been trying to come up with another topic I could explore in letter form, and I got to thinking about what I might say to myself as a teen. Here’s one possible approach. (And, yes, like most of my posts, it is completely self-indulgent. Sue me.)
Dear Amy (age 16): Ah, you sweet, shy, little perfectionist. First and foremost, calm down! The journey that gets you to where I am today (um, you, at age 40), is worth all the time and trouble. I wouldn’t want you to change a thing because I really like you, um… me … these days.  It was around Christmas time last year when I finally grew the cojones to stand up for myself in the context of an extremely rocky juncture of my marriage.
Needless to say, it did not go over well, and it marked the beginning of the end of that relationship. I remember feeling very anxious and unhappy during the Christmas season, not to mention resentful of my husband for casting such a pall on my favorite holiday. This year, I am in a much better place on nearly every level, so I have been looking forward to Christmas for months. I decorated my house the day after Thanksgiving, I've been blaring Christmas music in my car every day since then, and –- as evidenced by my Facebook posts -- I went into a baking frenzy a couple weeks back. This year, the spirit grabbed me by the waist and vigorously spun me around on the evergreen-adorned dance floor, and I let it.  Like the rest of the country, I have been deeply affected by the horrific events in Newtown, Conn. My heart is so very heavy, yet I am certain I’m shouldering only a tiny portion of what must be the excruciating grief the victims’ families -- and the entire community -- are enduring right now.
Tragedies are agonizing to bear at any time of the year, but these events are especially painful because they occurred so close to Christmas. For the people directly affected, the holidays will forever be associated with horror. And that breaks my heart all over again. I could use this space to explore my feelings about the Sandy Hook shootings, the mental state of the shooter and how Friday’s events came to pass. How could this happen? Could it have been prevented? I don’t have any answers, but like most people, I have a desperate need to make sense of it all.  Dear Ethan,
Dude. So you’re going to be 18 years old in just six months. My maxim for a while now has been that you’ll be getting luggage for your birthday. I say it only partly in jest, and you know where that comes from. … The past few years have been rough on both of us, and we’ve had our share of, ahem, challenges. To say that high school did not work out for you would be an understatement. Our family drama did not help that, I know. I’m sorry for not handling things a little better on my end. All told, I think we’re past the worst of it now, though. Thank God. I’m really proud of the initiative you’ve started to take. Studying hard for the GED test and committing to a new job at Kroger are huge strides in your maturity. I don’t think you’re quite ready to run a Fortune 500 company, but you are a hell of lot more prepared for the real world than you were just a year ago. |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
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