So, there's a reason I can't sleep, and it's not a very happy one.

My grandfather died unexpectedly very early Friday morning. And I'm very sad about it.

This comes at a time where I am more and more terrified of loosing the people that I love and care about, which, I suppose is directly correlated to the fact that I actually *have* someone (FINALLY) in my life that I don't want to loose just yet. (Or ever, frankly).

It is also directly correlated with the fact that alot of people I have known tangentially have been dying this spring or getting sick. And hearing everyday on the radio about how more and more people are killed in war and in fighting all around the world. I guess it just figures sooner or later, the tangent isn't a very long one, and the person that's died is mine to mourn this time.

Makes you think about things. Not that I didn't before. But somehow the fact that EVERYBODY DIES, and I mean really everybody (and that includes everyone I know, me, the people I see on the street - if they really exist, I'm still working on that - everyone you know, you, everyone) gets born and then at some point they die, didn't really sink in before.

It also has made me think about how *easy* it is to die. And how crazy it is that it people don't do it even more often then they already do. And how hard it is to die too. And how we have NO FUCKING CONTROL over any of it. And how that makes me want to wear a bear suit more and more.

This is also all happening as I have been reading a book called: Eat, Pray, Love by a woman who went through a really shitty time and went travelling to start getting her shit back together.

She leaves for Italy, then goes to an Ashram in India and ends up in Bali before heading home to the States after a year away. And she pretty much gets her shit together. Which is handy, considering she'd already sold the book idea to her publisher and was using the advance to fund her trip. Talk about pressure.

Anyway, I just finished reading the book earlier tonight after plowing through it, hoping it could provide me with all sorts of inspirational wisdom that would stop me from being so damn afraid of the shit hitting the fan.

-- Ok, at this point I'd like to discuss something else that I have been realizing that is SO seemingly tangential and random, but I feel is interesting and perhaps someone else can relate to this too. I have realized that I get this impending sense of doom whenever I am feeling happy and like things are going my way.

Like if I relax into the happy goodtimes feeling, BOOM, suddenly death and destruction and, you're fucked. So, I better stay vigilant and aware of the danger at all times because otherwise, the shit is hitting the fan and you really really won't be able to wash the smell off.

This little fear is complete with idea of me being locked into a padded cell and medicated into a vegetable state for the rest of my life because of the trauma the shit hitting the fan has caused.

Now, I have done A LOT of thinking about this and why I have this fear. I can trace it back to my moving a lot when I was young (although, I was no army brat, heaven forbid you do that to your children - it fucks them up - I don't care what you may tell yourself - and this goes for you too Angelina and Brad - kids need stability and consistency and ripping them away from that constantly fucks them up -- so there.) and being torn up from the roots every time I felt comfortable until I just gave up trying to feel comfortable. So now, feeling comfortable, is uncomfortable. Get it?

But I've realized, I don't think that's it, entirely. My reiki dude (what? you don't have a reiki dude?) said to me once that most people's anxiety stems from the fact that they feel like they won't be able to handle the horrible things they imagine happening in the future. And that is surely a contributing factor to my own anxious musings. However, if I really think about it, I can handle it. I handled it when I was fucking 4 years old, when I was 8, when I was 11, I've handled all sorts of rejection and heartache and loneliness. It's sucked, but I have and I guess some of it stems from hoping REALLY HARD that I won't have to endure that sort of crap again. And maybe I haven't finished being sad about it. How can you ever finish feeling sad about that kind of loss? I don't know. But it's tolerable.

So, what? what might it be that fills me with such dread? You know what? Everytime I imagine this great tragedy that occurs when I finally relax into happiness scene after scene from movie after movie flashes through my head. I swear to god a cheap Hollywood plot device has given me Post Traumatic Stress Disorder about being happy. I mean don't you remember when Demi Moore's character was coming back from that fabulous happy event with Patrick Swayze's character in the dark alleyways of Soho and he got shot and died? Don't you remember that?

Well, I fucking do. And I also remember I saw that movie (Ghost for you kids in the audience that missed it) the first time I loved someone this much and I was having the same intensely mortal fears. And I cried so much, I thought I was going to throw up at the end of that movie.

I apparently wasn't affected by the happy ever after stories. I, *apparently*, have been scarred by the dramatic plot arch. That, and add in a medium psychic character that can let you know that everyone is ok on the other side and I'm a goner. Whoopie Goldberg TOTALLY deserved that Oscar.

So, yes, the last time I went through this crazy fear of death, don't want to get into cars or airplanes, or eat anything that might have a high choking hazard, was 1990 and I was in love with my first boyfriend and I was graduating from high school and I was freaking out.

And so, reading this book, I hoped I would glean some wisdom that would calm my mind down (once again, it's all about meditating - BO-RING - can't someone just invent enlightenment lite? Is so much to ask?) But I realized, I *had* an experience way back when much like the author of the book I have just finished (although I was 18, not 34 when it all began). I too decided to haul my ass halfway across the world to smack some sense into myself. On some levels it really didn't work (for instance, I have had to wait until I was 34 to stop being so self conscious and to not give a shit whether or not I'm pretty or not - and for the record, I really don't give a shit anymore, as one of my ex-boyfriends used to say when I told him he was cute: IRRELEVANT!) but in another way, it made me really really really *get* that we are not in control of the world, of nature, or of our destinies in a way that was incredibly valuable to me.

I would find myself walking across an EXTREMELY rickity bridge made of literally, rope and planks stretched across a deep ravine with an angry river below literally yelling to anyone that would listen "I WOULD *SO* NOT DO THIS AT HOME".

But I was in Nepal. And I had to cross this bridge, because I had to keep moving forward and make it over the mountain. I guess I could have refused and gone back all by myself. But that would have been sort of humiliating and potentially even more dangerous. And so I did it. I stopped being scared shitless and just did it. And when I came back to the States, I really had a sense of understanding that I was not the pilot, or the co-pilot, but that whomever controls these things was doing their job, and it wasn't me.

But almost 20 years later, I seem to have lost that feeling. It's been beaten out of me by living amoungst the cities and the machines. I'm not sure how but I want very much to get that feeling back, because I am loving deeply again and want to feel joy without dread clamping down on me everytime the joy wells up.

Lately I've been wanting to do yoga and hug trees. I actually did it the other day, I hugged a tree so hard, like it was my child and I loved it like it came from me. I dunno, maybe that will bring the feeling back.

Amusingly, in this book I just read, the auther also hugs a tree. Well, actually, I think she might have tried to make out with the tree. I read that right after I had just hugged one. But I'd been having the urge to do it for months now, glad to know I'm not the only one.

So, why am I writing all this rambling nonsense anyway? Because it's almost three in the morning and I'm exhausted. Because it's feels better to me than crying until I throw up. Because my dear dear sweet grandpa just died and I need to remind myself of the lessons I've already learned.

Must we always need the same lesson over and over again? Doesn't getting older take care of that at some point?

I need to remember that I don't need book to tell me what's what, because I *know* it. I've learned it for myself. Don't you remember? Don't *I* remember? Hello? Wake up in there!

I need to remember again the feeling I had. The feeling of being above the tree line, high in the mountains, working my way to the summit, breathing the thin air with intention, willing my one foot to in front of the other just for a little further, and being as close to heaven as I've ever been.

It's the least I can do while I'm here. The least and the most.

I love you Grandpa.