Accidents

That we would do, 
We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh, 
That hurts by easing.

Shakespeare, Hamlet IV, vii, 132-137

I have been mulling over small events that lead to bigger events, and how sometimes we fight these things, and how sometimes we must accept what we don't necessarily like.

At dinner with Mr. Nearly Perfect the other night, Nalini was telling him and his wife about my period of depression and suicidal ideation, which wasn't my crowning moment of glory. I cannot remember now what it felt like to be so hopeless, to feel so unmoored to humanity, but I do remember it was awful and painful in the abyss. I have been depressed before, and Mr. Nearly Perfect had helped to buoy me up through some of it. I was embarrassed to have him hear of this one particular episode. I didn't want him to know, to think I was weak.

But his response was, "I am glad that you fought so hard. I am glad we didn't lose you." It's hard for me to allow myself to be vulnerable on that level to people in my real life, to people I am afraid of losing.

I was talking to my friend Katie the week before, about emotions bleeding over and crippling people in work and everyday functioning. I tend not to think of myself as strong, and she called bullshit on me. She said, "You were the top of your class always, even when you were bullied and hated yourself because you know how to compartmentalize your emotions. You don't think you do, but you do. That's why you can work and have relationships and live, even when you're fucked up beyond belief. You only let certain of us see it. Less functional people self-sabotage. You don't."

Maybe Thomenon was right when he said I was stronger than I believed. He is a survivor of genocide. I don't know how he does it. He says it's because there's no choice. He says that it's the same for me.

I know that I am not the product of a love match. I am the accidental baby of a one-night stand. Given other circumstances, I would have been aborted. I am okay with that, but I am here. I did always hate myself, and tried to prove to myself and others that I was worthy of their love, that I was good enough. Somehow, I guess, I only did self-sabotage in relationships; it was about my heart. Not work or education. And maybe now, I see that what I was looking for, I always had.

This accident of my conception and birth was beyond my control, but I am connected by it to people nonetheless. Through the accidents of gene combination, I am clearly the progeny of this man, if you compare our faces:

My grandfather had the benefit of youth when that particular photograph was taken. LOL

And, as Mr. Nearly Perfect said, when looking at this photograph of my younger son, "Now there's a resemblance."

Again, the roll of the die of DNA. My elder son looks nothing like me, except for his eyes. It's all his father.

So many accidents. As an anxious person, accidents bother me, set me off balance. How do I deal with the resulting mess, the chaos? I become a deer in the headlights in the face of mess. Not so much actual mess, sadly, as my husband would say, but intellectual mess. Life is messy; children have helped me accept that. Things do not go as planned. That's all right. I deal with that at work, as well. We hope for a vaginal delivery, but we don't always get it. When that fetal heart rate dips, we run to the OR. Such is life, and protecting it.

What I do love is that the accident that resulted in me perhaps might not have been the catastrophe so many people painted it to be, or the catastrophe I took it to be. I still have quite a few things to say. What a relief! Getting older certainly does have its advantages.