Self-absorption? Self-awareness?

... but then again, who isn't (self-absorbed, or self-aware)? It's all a matter of degrees. And I guess YES, I'm blogging and journaling and that is an act of self-absorption, but I'm also using it as a means of documenting things, as well as ANALYZING shit.

I think of how isolated Audrey has made herself. The world must come to her. I don't pity her. It's not like some otherworldly thing has befallen her. A polio diagnosis or a brain tumor.  Getting hit by a bus. Getting hit by lightning. Nope. Her life is now so radically limited and handicapped by her choice to do absolutely nothing, and I think I am the only person on planet earth who views that act as an act of LUXURY. Yes, LUXURY.

Audrey went from living with her parents, who took care of her, to living with my dad, who took care of her. And when dad died, now she expects others to take care of her. LUXURY. Why worry about walking or disimpacting her own ass, when she's got the LUXURY of my sister who lives a scant five minutes from her?

I think and worry a LOT about what kind of life I want or hope to have when I am Audrey's age (69) and well beyond, I hope, and how I hope to keep moving and doing and seeing and participating in all the things I enjoy. Audrey's life is devoid of enjoyment. She's bitter, resentful, depressed, and isolated, and in denial that she needs psychiatric help.  Even when the opportunity presented itself for her to speak to a psychiatrist, she was so wrapped up in being offended, and of course, she shoved him away, rather than view it as an opportunity for growth, or an opportunity to break out of her misery, even on a molecular level. 

I think of my great-aunt Millie, who at 84, was still traveling the world, and somehow, briefly (a year or two before she passed) had reconnected with her high school sweet heart. The woman (horrid hammer toes and all) wore stilletos and a leather mini skirt to my wedding, hair in an updo, make up on. Every inch of her as she always ever was: VIBRANT, and living life. 

Six months to a year before my wedding, I vividly remember visiting her in the hospital when she got the news she needed a valve replacement. And 100% mental capacity fully in tact, she told me she was not going in for the replacement. "What will it buy me? A few more months? A year or two? What will the quality of my life be?" She promised me she'd live long enough to see me remarry--and she did.

"Okay. So you have an advantage not a lot of us have. You have a general idea of when you'll be "exiting stage left." What do you have planned that you haven't managed to do in your 84 years thus far?" And with that, she took out a black and white composition book, and replied, "I don't know about the full six months to a year, but I've got until April figured out. Some lunches with friends, a Broadway show..."  Typical Millie.

Sadly she did not have any world travel in that composition book. "I don't want to die and ruin someone's vacation," she said. Again, TYPICAL. Not wanting to harsh someone's mellow. Not wanting to be a burden.

So it was a gift to me that she lived long enough to see me remarry. 

And the time eventually came. And she was in and out of the hospital. End of February she wanted to just go home. And she did. And despite being a late-in-life reformed alcoholic, she asked her son-in-law to mix her up a Cosmo or two. And he did. And she no doubt relished those cocktails before laying down for a nap, a nap of which she never woke up from. 

Perhaps it's over-romanticizing Millie's death experience, but therein, I feel, there is a lot to be said about LIFE. And this is a woman who experienced loss. Loss of her parents and her husband, and in the last year of her life, the passing of her son. She had outlived all her siblings and immediate family. LOSS. And yet, she still found a reason to get up in the morning. A reason to keep moving and experiencing and ENJOYING what she could, even if in the end it was two gin based cocktails that were her last earthly enjoyment.

And because she loved LIFE so damned much, remember that prediction she'd live 6 months (without the valve replacement)? She beat the odds and got an extra 18 months out of life, wringing every last drop of use out of her worn out body.  

THAT is who I hope to be when I grow up.
THAT is the type of "old" person I hope to become.

Whenever I had a visit with her, there was not one moment of regret or bitterness with her. Eyes that shined like her trademark aquamarine she wore, she was there, and present, and laughing, and MILLIE. 

Damn, I miss her.

And the ego kicks in, and I wonder, who will miss me.