Things and Stuff

School starts tomorrow, and I am already terrified of it. Each syllabus I get makes me increasingly anxious about what I've signed up for: 10,000 pages worth of reading, 300 class presentations, and another emotional breakdown. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii hate this. I mean, I can tell you right now, I'm not capable of successfully completing this semester. no mystery there. The question is - what will I do once I've failed? How will I go on? pick up the pieces? Which of my friends will still be falsely confident enough in me to continue prodding me towards a Ph.D.? and will I ever have the time to actually absorb anything? Because if not, I'm gonna be pretty T.O.ed.

I drove my Great Aunt Josie home today from our Labor Day celebration. She is so old. 81. I used to wonder a lot what my mother would look like had she lived to old age, but a month or so ago, at dinner with Aunt Josie and one of her sisters, I knew. They all look exactly the same, and eerily like Mom. Pieces of Mom I'd forgotten pop up across their faces and in their posture. It is strange, and so so comforting.

Except that oldness is sad, so sad, not oldness but frailness, slowness, shuffling down the hall and stumbling over curbs. There's no shame in gray hair, but it must be a little humiliating to never be able to stand without assistance, and to sit, widowed and half-blind in your silent retirement home apartment, the silence punctuated only by the occasional grunt of your next-door neighbor, with few thoughts to distract you from the droning truth: it has come to this. Aunt Josie is not doing so bad for herself. Her mood seems to have evened out, and she's finally arranged her apartment "so that it looks like Josie lives there," as she says. I think she's got a pretty nice place for herself, as retirement homes go. She has friends visit from out of town, and so many stories of an extravagant life in high society, but it occurred to me today that she is finally in a place that she might actually need a friend in me, her little great niece. There is only one picture in her apartment, and it is of me, as a 4 year old. I've never really been one to call or visit extended family without a parent present, but I think I'd like to start. Aunt Josie has always demanded a lot from her guests - certain etiquette and repeated lavish praise and thanksgiving for her many kindnesses - but her age has mellowed her. There's only sweetness left and gratitude for a listening ear. And for all she's invested in my life, financial and otherwise, I think she deserves it.