fake

This post from waaaay back has been requested twice in the past few months and I keep forgetting. So Sorry.

“My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.”

I could have died last Thursday. You laugh. But I could have.

It was a distinct possibility. I was going to be put under general anesthesia. As dead as you can be without actually ceasing to live. The thought of my demise was planted via the doom-delivery-system otherwise known as the mountains and mountains of legalese the hospital, doctors, parking attendant, and cafeteria lady gave me to sign. This charming pre-op ritual made it clear that I was to hold absolutely no one responsible for my death—should I find myself actually dead while faking it.

Doctors make you do that just before they put you under.

“Do you have a pen?” The person in charge of responsibility-dodging asked with a straight face. “I’m wearing a paper gown, what do you think?”

Culpability. It’s a thing.

I could have choked on my pastrami sandwich at lunch today but the deli didn’t drown me in documents before I took my first bite.

Sheesh.

I get it. It’s their duty to remind you. That’s the thing about being injected with drugs that render you ‘fake’ dead so they can cut you wide open—they up your odds of becoming ‘real’ dead.

Anyhow, it got me thinking about dying.

About my “exit strategy”, which is a term my deceased friend uses to refer to death. “Everyone has one, you have several opportunities actually” she reminds me all the time. Apparently, it presents itself in the form of an illness, a car accident, an egg salad at the beach, or airport sushi.

Everyone keeps telling you that shit’ll kill ya.

So even though I didn’t have a reasonable reason to feel as if my days were numbered—I just did.

I lived as if I was going to die.

Imminently. Like Thursday.

I’m not gonna lie, my fake death made me a little fake sad. Mostly it made me crave bad food (because hey, why not)—and wish I’d had time to get my hair straightened (good looking corpse rule #2. Rule #1 – Mani-pedi.)

Oh, and it made me pay attention to my life. I was suddenly ‘all in’. No half-assing.

Everything I did I felt like I was doing for the last time, so I savored it. Kissing my dog was delicious. Ice cream tasted better if you can imagine that.

Dislikes became definitive: I can’t stand cheap vanilla candles or cologne on men in elevators.

I noticed things I tend to overlook: The sound of the rain as it hits the pavers in our courtyard.
And have you ever noticed that lots of people hold hands? Have you? I never did. And not just parents and kids. Couples of all types. Young, old, fat, skinny, young and skinny, old and fat, didn’t matter. hands were being held. I think that’s sweet.

Did you know that studies have found that holding hands is good for your heart? I looked it up.

I took my time. I dawdled. I went to the movies in the middle of the day and ate a hot dog—with extra mustard. I walked my neighborhood without my earbuds. I noticed my feet and my legs and how they move me through life and instead of run/walking everywhere like I normally do, I wandered. I looked more closely at the street art. I splashed in puddles. I said hello to strangers which isn’t new, I just noticed how often I do that.

I wondered if my fake death was making me lazy? Oh, look, a fake problem.

You wanna know what I didn’t do?
Hold on tight to anything.
Worry (why waste my time?)
Diet.
Walk on eggshells.
Work more.
Forget to say I LOVE YOU.

Saturday I came down with the flu and just like that it felt as if the rumors of my death would pan out to be true.

My surgery was canceled, and as suddenly as it had appeared, the energy of my “exit strategy” passed.

Again, just like that.

It has left my consciousness so completely that as hard as I try I can’t even conjure the feeling.

I know that when I do get this surgery the thought of dying won’t even occur to me.

I had my fake dry run and the take-away was something real.

Appreciating my life.

Carry on,
xox

“Why can’t these guys just like me for who I am?” I lamented, picking at the appropriate numbing agent for 1:30 on a Tuesday afternoon –– a Joan’s On Third, gooey chocolate brownie.

I had posed the question to a girlfriend sitting across from me. The married one. The one I always whined to after the latest, greatest, guy proved NOT to be “the one”.
This time however, the answer I heard did not come from her. She was distracted, looking away.

No, this voice had wisdom, gravitas, and rumbled with authority –– think Bea Arthur.

“It’s because you are never yourself with them.”

“What? What did you say? What do you mean?” I stopped my yammering mid brownie, suddenly feeling exposed. Self consciously I started looking around at the tables nearby; had someone been eavesdropping at my pity party?

“Do you see any Splenda? I need some Splenda for my coffee.”
My friend was twisted in her seat, distracted; more interested in doctoring her drink than solving my latest dating dilemma.
Suddenly, after spotting the sweetener, she was up with a determined focus, bolting to the cream and sugar station situated by the beverage pickup.

It was clear I was hearing things. “Oh great, now I’ve lost my mind” I mumbled, loosing my appetite, pushing the brownie full of divots away from me with one hand, while excavating the chocolate underneath the fingernails of the other with my teeth.

I stayed another five minutes and then excused myself, racing home. My friend was lost in her decaf, no foam, extra milk latte, A.D.D., and I was figuring it would be better to be freed of my faculties in a less public venue.

With my Whoa Is Me – Greatest Hits tape running on its endless loop inside my head, the question came up again and again on the drive home.

“I’m a good person. Why can’t these guys ever just like me for me?” Just like most rhetorical questions it was directed at no one in particular.

“Would you rather seek to love – or be loved?” Bea was back.

“Wait, no fair!” I called foul. “You can’t answer a question with a question, let alone a trick one. Besides, I need to think about this…let me get back to you… um, over and out” I figured that’s how you let the voice in your head, (the one that was now asking the tough questions) know that the conversation would have to wait. There was traffic on Laurel Canyon and I needed to pay attention.

Later that night, as I lay in Savasana, completely rung out toward the end of a Yoga class; Bea, being the ultimate opportunist, decided that moment was the perfect time to pick up where we had left off.

“Well? What did you decide? Would you rather seek love, or seek to be loved? You can’t say ‘both’ because they are inherently different.”

“Shit! That was going to be my answer. Okay… shoot…I seek to be loved” I replied, flipping a mental coin, hoping I’d guessed the right answer.

“How do you go about accomplishing that?” she pressed on.

“I just try to be the best version of me. I put my best foot forward. It’s all about first impressions you know” I was getting annoyed with my pushy new imaginary friend.

“No, you’re putting your false foot forward. You are never the best version of you, you are the version you think THEY want you to be –– so they will love you.”

Ouch. And holy shit. Apparently Bea’s was a voice that told you the truth. The hard truth, the things your best friends were too afraid to say to your face.

“You have reinvented yourself over and over again, trying to fit a certain expectation. You’ve never truly just been YOURSELF.” Okay Bea, you can shut up now.

But she went on, her voice an insistent rumble.
“There is no power in seeking love. You have no control over the other person, what they do, what they think. You’re not even sizing them up, to see if they’re a good fit for YOU. Besides, it is unsustainable, which leaves you tap dancing as fast as you can, forever seeking to be loved.”

My heart felt like someone and just finished target practice. Damn her!

I rolled up my mat, stowed my blanket, all the while fighting back tears.

Yoga does that to you. It opens your heart and makes you weepy. But so do blabbermouth, truth telling disembodied voices.

My soggy eyes stuck to the ground, avoiding the teacher’s gaze as I silently made my way to the parking lot.

On the ride home I gave Bea the silent treatment. I was angry. What gave her the right to see me so clearly and to talk to me that way?

As the days wore on I felt transparent, vulnerable, and hurt –– often all at the same time. But one thing had become crystal clear, and I didn’t even want to admit it to myself…Bea was right.

During that time I remembered a favorite quote from the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient Indian text, “It is better to live your own life imperfectly than to lead a perfect imitation of someone else’s life.” which was now taking on a whole new, very personal meaning.

“You can seek to love” it was barely a whisper.

9 p.m. I had just finished meditating, trying to find my balance. About a week had passed. I guess Bea was taking my emotional temperature, waiting to see if it was safe to start another dialogue.

Bea had balls.

Feeling mellow and a bit woozy from the meditation, I decided to answer her.

“And what does THAT look like?” I still had an edge.

“It feels empowering” her voice this time was softer, gentler.
“It feels open, expansive, like choices and freedom. If you can love without expectation, seeking nothing in return, you will get all that you desire.”

“That sounds too good to be true.”

“Oh, it’s true. And it is good and simple – but it isn’t easy. There is risk involved, I’m not going to lie. It requires vulnerability, authenticity, and transparency. All the feelings you experienced this week. You got hurt — but you didn’t die. And you learned something about yourself.”

Bea was right. About that and so many other things.

She will always be my voice of reason, the one I am so lucky to connect with when I am unable to drown out all of the others.
She speaks to me when I get off course, in her deep growling but compassionate voice –– of love. Nope, no stock tips, no lottery numbers, not even any fashion advice.

Only love –– because seriously, isn’t that all that really matters?

Carry on,
xox