A week of quiet – mostly: Reading Week, the week when we don't teach classes. I have gotten many small things done, and worked a bit on larger ones. I've retrieved a certain calm from the time out – inevitably I'm a bit dismayed to go back to classes and meetings, and especially a research seminar in London, for which I'm still (as usual) only sketchily prepared; but I don't feel quite as worn out, quite as irritated, by people's demands and things undone.
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There are people who matter to me who are having difficult times: one struggling with chemotherapy and serious side effects, one newly diagnosed with diabetes. Then there are others with longer histories, the two colleagues with multiple sclerosis, the one with breast cancer, the one with crippling nerve damage which may get worse and may even kill her eventually. Some of them come to me for advice – with others we just share an awareness of what our mortality means. I am struck again, however, by a certain rather peculiar resentment – just as Philip's death of cancer, Vanessa's death of polymyositis, and David's death of – well what was it, I suppose "complications due to long-term HIV infection" – just as they all left me rather peevish, so do the problems of these others leave me distinctly exasperated with the imbalances of the universe.
Very peculiar, I suppose: it implies that I had somehow drawn a thick line between those of us who have AIDS, and everyone else – and blithely assumed that the task was to make Those Others understand what suffering, illness, fear and death were about. Rather than noticing the obvious, which is that a lot of people are marked for suffering on both sides of the line – in a way I'm very lucky that my personal focus for misery was AIDS, because I can share that with a lot of friends; while those with more isolating conditions (MS, cancer) often don't get the advantage of shared troubles. (Or, let's face it, take advantage of sharing troubles: and though I suppose many hospitals now push cancer patients to come to support groups, many never do so.)
Another peculiar aspect of these instinctive reactions: I am so sure (still, even in the midst of this cognitive behavior therapy) that I have made such a mess of my life, that the deaths of others instead of me seems entirely wrong-footed, utterly ridiculous: why would anybody choose that the angelic Philip, who had a relationship and was so important to so many people, would die so rapidly and awfully? And Vanessa was so much more productive, so much more connected to so many people who benefited from her work and life; and David continued being brilliant through all his complex illnesses.
It simply doesn't make sense. And yes, I know: I already see the peculiar decision underlying such thoughts – that the blunders I've committed have made me superfluous to the world, a decision I think I made back when I was seventeen (if not before – I tend to have little memory of my life before I went away to college). And it's part of this therapy to notice such underlying beliefs/decisions, and to try to come up with something better to replace it; but it's so hard to argue against – when I get phone calls about my long-unpaid student loans, when I start struggling with the promotions committee yet again, when I face how little real work I've done lately – I simply can't make sense of it: why am I still here, and they are gone?...
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Working on this London seminar: my rather dramatic PowerPoint is already pretty good, but there needs to be more writing, more concrete thought. And the topic is difficult: it is the one about music about AIDS, especially works that suggest anger and paranoia – so I'm listening to all my music about AIDS again. Which I will have to do for the next year, at least, as I need to write the book on the topic....
And I'll admit: at points it all seems too difficult. It's hard enough to get past my procrastination, my constant sidestepping into other activities, my self-hypnosis into a daily state of inertia; but on top of that, if I have to fight with the dark, draining emotions raised by the material itself – can I really do this? Is it even sane to expect this of myself?...
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