smoke and mirrors

my cigarette consumption has risen dramatically in the past week. my candidate says it's his fault, and i told him he's right. even this dinky municipal election sucks up a shocking number of hours. way more than i had originally signed up to give. but the adrenaline of a campaign for people like me is wholly intoxicating. especially now that we're less than two weeks from e-day, i complain about being tired or over-extended, but i still walk around with this sorta heady feeling about the possibility of a win. i'm also gloating a bit because my guy has shed his 'nice guy' approach. not that he's morphed into some kind of cut-throat candidaterminator, but he's letting us amp up the messaging. we're now targeting opponents in a manner that three months ago would have made him squirm. in physiological terms, i think his balls have dropped (don't tell him i said that). ah, the splendour of bearing witness to this moving metamorphisis of babe to contender.

distractions such as municipal affairs have allowed me to shelve, or at least deny, other bubbling turmoils. i think i'm relieved. however, it feels like any moment, what swirls underneath may come shooting out of me in sudden, and perhaps inappropriate ways. i'm doing some dealing-with-things in stolen moments here and there, but i'm damn sure i'm not dealing. some of what has been going down in recent weeks is just too shitty to mop up right now. it's like an overflowed tub in which i need to immerse myself for a long soak before even thinking about a clean-up. the inability to soak in it, along with other flawed needs, has resulted in a fairly decisive retreat on my part from the few important people in my life. it's better this way.

so here i am, minding my own business, rolling onwards like a crazy steel ball being shot around a pinball machine, and what happens last night? i met a woman who has 6-8 months to live. she's 42. i am only the second person she told. she has chosen not to divulge the prognosis to her friends because when the cancer first appeared two years ago, she said they treated her "weird". now she's miserable carrying this terminal reality all by her lonesome. she's full of regret and pain. she's not afraid of dying, she's afraid of not having done anything important. she wishes she had had children in order to leave some a legacy. it is impossible to fathom how she feels right now ... for all i know, she has left millions of imprints throughout her life as legacies, but here, near the end, she feels how she feels - what i can't know. all i do know is that such conversations leave a gal thinking about what my legacy might be, whatever that means. if i go tomorrow, i won't feel angsty about legacies unleft. being relatively comfortable with death - mine or anyone else's - i think comes from being so uncomfortable with life. may sound odd, but it's all ok with me. and at least i've got that.