Jan
30
It is hard to get out of a loop of wishing things were different than they are.
When I used to visit with my hospice patient Isabelle, something I often did was to use a little cuticle oil pen on her nails. It was something I carried in my purse, just this almond oil pen dispenser with a brush at the tip. She always liked it; I would paint the oil on her nails then rub it in, one by one, until she would admire her shiny nails and I would do my own. It felt like a little manicure session, a tiny bit of luxury, and because she was not able to remember, each time it was equally delightful. Her surprise at how it worked, her pleasure. When I last saw her, when she lay dying in bed and I held her sweet small fragile hand, I wanted so badly to do her nails, and I went digging and digging in my purse and the pen was gone. It was just gone and I haven’t found it since, somehow it disappeared and when I most wanted it I could not use it to paint dear Isabelle’s nails one final time. And I wished over and over for that not to be true, for my last visit to have included the small gesture of rubbing oil into her fingers, or maybe that I would have simply asked for some moisturizer, that would have gladly been given to me, I wish I would have done that but I did not. I didn’t have the pen and I just held her hand and that was okay, I know, but also I wish it had been different.
I wish so many things were different. I wish the election had been different. I wish my divorce was different. I wish my boys were chatty texters who cannot stop themselves from sending me many pictures from their days. I wish my mom and aunt lived closer. I wish that when I gain weight it would go somewhere other than my waist and boobs. I wish if we are in the business of just erasing truths and laws we could go ahead and get rid of daylight savings. I wish AI was being incorporated in truly useful ways and not just shoved willy-nilly into nook and cranny of humanity. I wish the social networks that algorithmically drive our opinions and actions were being run by relatable human beings. I wish guns simply did not exist. I wish delicous salty nuts did not have so very many calories. I wish owning a horse wasn’t so expensive. I wish our cultural beauty standards driven by capitalism would evaporate. I wish avocados and bananas had a lengthier ripeness stage. I wish mouthbreathing idiots would stop loudly confusing global warming with cold temperatures. I wish my cat could live forever.
Anyway. It is often hard to get out of the loop, and I wish it wasn’t.
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