Worry

I’ve been lucky in life, not having very many worries. Some people go through life wracked by worry as some are natural worriers and some are naturally unlucky. The expression that you make your own luck can not be applied to all people as there are some less fortunates who are prone to poor luck. I wonder if they worry? Or maybe they are fatalistic or perhaps cynical enough to realise that their poor run of luck is life’s way of having a laugh at them, and that they in turn can derive some kind of black humour from it. I would hope that they would be able to laugh at their continuous runs of misfortune.

So one goes through life without worries, then some really serious worries come along and you realise how meaningless and trivial your everyday concerns are. I find that just as themes and film have plot runs so too does life. Films may well be predetermined in a way that life is not, but there are plots that run through both, and in life these plots are opened up, I find, in a series of revelations and slow dawnings. Not unlike a film then, except luckily life lasts longer then films. An example of this is ageing. I’m 32 and I had a mini-revelation last night that I’m nearly mid-way through my life. This revelation came as a response to my thoughts on mortality. Life, as with everything has its peaks and troughs, and you can be going along quite smoothly then all of a sudden a spanner of particular evilness is thrown in the works, and what is most alarming is that this spanner seemingly appears from nowhere, although on reflection there are always little insidious sign of the approaching nightmare. I have two uncles on my father’s side of the family, and one of them is days away from death. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer about a month ago after suffering kidney failure and was given 8 weeks to live. It turns out that he hasn’t been well fro some time. You see, he was quite distant from the family having cut himself off about ten years ago. There’s no need to go into details as families are funny things, and though I don’t feel devastated I feel some guilt at having not gone and visited. His hospital is in Sherbourne which is about an 8 hour return trip from London. I was going to go and visit him with my brother when he comes over from China but it seems he won’t live that long.

That’s a weird thing, that someone won’t live that long. That this time in two months he’ll be gone forever. He’s had his troubles in life and I know now that not only is he philosophical about the turn of events, but that he is now apologising to those that he has hurt during his life. But though he cut himself off from the family, the family have been to see him, and are still with him now. It is just terribly sad and my father, who stood by him and supported him is terribly upset by it all, more so than even he thought he would be.

I’d got my head around this element of mortality. That a swift sudden death is a better way to go than a lingering painful decline from cancer. I’d made my peace with this concept, and so it was that I emailed my brother yesterday with the sad news that this uncle was now on a push-button administered morphine drip and that this is the final stage of palliative care.

Then came the second piece of devastating news and the stimulus to the very long collection of words. One of my cousins rang last night and told my father that his second brother had collapsed at the weekend and was now semi-conscious in hospital with a ‘growth’ around his pitiuary gland. This gland is at the top of the spinal column where it connects with the brain and is about the size of a pea. What this growth is, we don’t know but anything happening in the body that causes a collapse is not a good thing. The test results are due back today.

And so I come back to worry again. I find that it comes in waves. Here I am sitting at my desk at work, not having done any work at all as I can’t seem to concentrate at all. You may wonder how it is that I am still able to write, but it is like having an entirely one-sided conversation. Still, it is making me feel marginally better by distracting me. This worry comes in waves. One minute I’m completely ok and working on something or doing whatever it is that I normally do and the next is like that dreadful feeling of butterflies before an exam or almost like the waves of panic that I get in the underground sometimes. I then have to sit back and look elsewhere as I can not concentrate. Twice this morning I’ve felt like making my excuses and going home for the day. This morning I was asked to swap desks for the day and I felt close to tears at this. And I have it now. I feel something rising at the back of my throat and I find myself staring into space. I’m not looking at anything and I’m trying not to think of anything. I know what this feeling is. It is dread. It is akin to that fear of some of the teachers at school, or of bullies. It’s the fear of the unknown.

I’m going to go for a long walk at lunch and see how I feel after that. I’m expecting a phone call from my father about the news. The longer that I don’t get that call the more I’m drawn into the conflict of ‘no news is good news’ versus ‘there’s been no news, this is bad news’. And somewhere in the middle is the quiet voice of moderation but it is losing its battle right now.

I thought that writing would make me feel better – it usually does – but its made no difference.