Change keeps changing things
I give up exercise, meditation, dinners with friends. I get to bed late, toss and turn all night, wake up early. I am offering up my own life as a sacrifice, in exchange for the happiness and well-being of the people I love more than life itself — and no matter how much I give, they keep leaving.
My father is getting ready to die. My son is going to college. My mother is selling my childhood home. My husband, as he puts it, is “working myself into a grave.”
Somewhere in all of it, the thought arrives — quiet, certain, like something I’ve always known. Dis-membering myself won’t stop any of it. Giving myself away won’t hold a single one of them here.
Years ago, a therapist told me: You can’t stop change changing things. I understand now what he meant. Everything is changing. I can’t stop it. The thing that needs to change — it’s me. I have to change.
This is a scene from The End of Men, a memoir I started years ago.
The previous chapter, A Pretty Rough Day, is here. If you’re new to the project, read the first chapter here: Keys. The full list of scenes, in order, is here.
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