Narcissism, Disguised as Reflection and Confession

I'm leaving this evening for a business trip on the other side of the country for a few days.

Confession: every time I travel away from home, for business or pleasure, I'm afraid that I'll die while I'm gone and not make it back.

And it's not so much that I'm afraid of dying as I am afraid of not having lived well. This is pretty ironic, if you think about it. Because where one normally has little control over how and when one dies, one has a great deal of say in how well one lives. I have such a nagging feeling of having squandered my time so far. The emotion may be something genetic, or a past life, or determinism pressing down on me. Or maybe it's the symptoms of the disease of the over-achiever who is trying to compensate for deep-seated feelings of inadequacy as the child of a sociopathic parent. Take your pick. The end result is the same.

By by living "well," too, I just don't mean ethically - although that's of course important to me. I mean also usefully, productively, helpfully, honestly, and generously. Note that I did not say, as so many people I know would, "passionately," or "lovingly." Both important, yes, but I have to be frank and admit that those things are less likely to come to my mind as top priorities. Passion scares me, for the most part, and love is something I'm still working on. (I hear some of you: "That's so sad." Yeah. It is.) This isn't to say I don't adore my family and friends. I do. But it's taken time for love to win out over detachment, even in that arena. Christ and Buddha are probably both disappointed in me. Haven't you been paying attention at all? they probably want to know.

But besides fear (and ignorance of the benefits) keeping me from a Wild-Life-Lived-to-the-Brim, and besides my slow grasp of the importance of love, I think I am just pretty complacent in a lot of ways. Or maybe the better word is dull. I'd have been fine as a medieval nun, with my only purpose in life praying or doing my chores. I don't want to hang glide. I don't need to swim with sharks. I want to balance my checkbook, send out birthday cards on time, file the piles of paperwork in the office. Write new and better poems. I want to continue to learn to love family and friends and self. And all of those things are challenge enough, thank you very much, and don't leave time for me to find the cure for cancer.

Have to go now. Have to get my affairs in order before leaving for the airport. Because if I have to travel without having lived as well as I could have so far, I think my only option is making myself as right with God as I can, even if it's while doing the laundry and paying the bills, while packing my carry-on bag.