Day 14

Today's healthy choice was a mental health morning. I can be quite the hypochondriac and when I heard a friend's brother had died last weekend I of course started thinking about all the things wrong with me. He was 30 and an avid runner but complained of headaches... I get headaches. And I have given them to myself all week as I think about how sad this is for his family and friends. Even if I don't think I'm thinking about it, I am. I even had dreams about it. About our common friends. About how sad everyone was/is/must be. Though I didn't know him very well outside the standard "hi, how are you" - I know his friends and family and I was upset I couldn't be home for the wake and funeral. And perhaps that's what I was really feeling, was guilt, not that I was dying myself. But either way these haunting thoughts on top of a whirlwind Thanksgiving weekend kept this girl from sleeping hardly at all this week. So on Thursday morning when my alarm went off, I told my boss I was taking a sick day for the morning and I would see her in the afternoon. And I slept. And slept. And at 10:30 in the morning I finally got up, but only because I had to use the bathroom. And then I lounged. And in that morning I felt relief. It was at the same moment I was waking up feeling better about life that Matt was being laid to rest and somehow that was comforting. That everyone had gotten through it. That now that it was over people could start to move on. And I could stop worrying for them. I also take that old wives tale "death comes in threes" too literally. And always have. So when one person dies, young or old, I always fear until the third that the next might be someone in my family or friend circle. The first was a relative of my dad's friend. Distant to me. Didn't even know the poor kid. But it doesn't matter it counts as one. The second was Matt. The third turned out to be Nelson Mandela. Again distant. But I need three before I feel relieved again. And now I do. I needed that morning. And I am glad that I took it.