More aware

Over the last two weeks I have sent cards and Facebook messages and texts and made a phone call. It was more social contact than than usual, but it didn't happen in any organized manner. I kept remembering different people and things I wanted to say, then doing it.

My caring about people isn't new, but there is something that has changed. It's a culmination of a few things.

On the last weekend in July, my sisters and I went to Bend to see the Stray Cats concert. This story branches in two directions.

First of all, we loved the concert. I have always liked the band, but going to concerts was a really big deal when I was young. I went to a total of three before I turned 18. I absolutely needed to see Charlie Sexton, A-ha, and the Monkees, and was lucky they came here.

I have seen many bands from the 80s later, but they are getting older now (so have I). A few are too frail, or have developed conditions like tinnitus, or have died. When we look at different bands coming, we have to keep in mind that this may be the last chance to see them. Maybe there will be other chances, but we don't know. I had tickets to Modern English a while back, but it was canceled when one of the band members needed surgery.

One drawback with the concert was that the air was very smoky. It was getting worse, and there had been some talk of evacuations. If the concert had been a few days later, I can imagine it being canceled or at least postponed. It's not just the health of the band, but of the planet.

Nonetheless, this concert happened, and it turns out I had a friend there. We ran into each other the next morning. I realized I had not seen her in person since around 2012, when we saw the Gin Blossoms together.

I had been thinking about all of these things, and then the other thing happened.

A different friend holds a get-together at the beach every year. It was the same weekend as the concert. 

I obviously couldn't go, but if I am not going somewhere with my sisters and it's not easily accessible by Trimet, I probably can't go. Getting other rides might be possible, but it's embarrassing not driving and hard depending on other people and I just don't.

Another friend who generally does go died right before, but I found out right after. I don't know if anyone else was expecting it, but I sure wasn't. 

Two days after I learned that, a different person from school died, though not one I had known.

I remember years ago thinking that when someone my age dies it feels wrong, but there will probably come a time when it becomes more normal, and you are more aware of your own mortality. 

This might be an in-between stage. These deaths do still feel wrong, but not as shockingly wrong. I am not feeling death creeping closer to me, but there is a growing awareness that I just don't know how long I have with anyone.

It is easy to put things off anyway. I am tired all of the time, and I still have this tendency to hunker down for the difficult times to pass, and then it will be easier to reach out. 

For example, I had chatted with someone about getting together, and was going to suggest a date, but then the thing with trying to find a new PCP for Mom happened and that was really distracting me.

The problem is that the difficult times don't pass. They shift into different difficult times, but there is always going to be some reason to wait. 

My big change is a new awareness not to wait.