Valeria Out Loud

Well. It is stormy and I am sitting in my living room in a pretty somber mood. Figured I’d write because I just feel so..blah.

Just got back from a funeral with my husband, my good friend’s father (in-law) passed away this week. It was a fairly sudden passing; he was diagnosed with cancer and within 3 weeks he died. Luckily, as I figure we all hope when we go, he was surrounded by his children and wife when he passed on this Saturday. The plans for his funeral and burial were pulled together so quickly as covid19 really screwed us all.

I have been plagued with the thoughts of my own mortality since I was seven, when my best friend died. And, of course, during these moments in life we all think about our mortality or the ones of our loved ones. Or the lives we live. Life. Death. Always intertwined in a dance between the beauty and the ugliness.

I often think of death as ‘happening to someone else’. But we all die. You will die. I will die. Every living thing on this Earth will die.

It is just not known when.

I often think about that, too. The when. Like will I die old. Will I make it to have a grey Bea Arthur hairdo? Will I grow into that eccentric old woman like Iris Apfel, who wear the coolest of clothes and jewelry? Will I get to see my kids marry..or to see grandchildren? Or will I be able to watch my husband grow old? (Which I would love because I have a thing for silver foxes 😆).

Ugh. I want to make light of this all but this has been a crazy exhausting week. From my father having his ER scare. Oh and what I never shared- two days after he was in the ER he fainted from dehydration at home with my mom. The EMTs cleared him of everything, it was just lack of hydration. So it has been a rollercoaster there with my mom and our fears. Then my friend told me of his father-in law’s death on Sunday. Only to also share that his mom was diagnosed days before his father-in-law’s cancer arose with a crippling, life-threatening disease.

Ugh. It is all too much. Once I saw his parents at the father-in-law’s funeral, I lost my shit. His mother looked so frail. His father and I locked eyes over our masks and immediately cried. He made a beeline to me to hug. He needed my hug.

I needed his hug, too.

I should mention that my friend and I have been friends since 1993. We met on the first day of my first job. I was a cashier at a local super market, a junior in High School and he worked in the bakery department. I needed a bagger that first night, so they called him over to cover me. We looked at each other, and became instantly connected. More like, I gave him a few snarky comments and we have been close since. Oh. And. His dad is Sicilian- like me, so we are kindred spirits and his dad loved me from the moment we met.

Ugh. Life.

2020 has just sucked enough to not need anything more added to it. Especially not this.

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Well. I am going to change into the comfiest pjs that I own and drown in a coffee to unwind from the day. Idk what else to do. I am so close to this sober challenge being over that I much rather drown in a cocktail instead and call it over. I really want to!! I won’t but I want to.

Ok then. Hope I can blog next with a happier disposition. Xo Thanks for reading my vent.