Deathwish 046: Brenda
“Stepped into the after without missing a beat”
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Sometimes I think I’ve died already. Somehow the bodily processes shut down and I missed the memo. Stepped into the after without missing a beat. Sure, this feels like breathing, feels like being alive but I don’t know any different. Expectation colors perception.
It happens all the time, like when you’re driving at night and you think an animal has darted into the road in front of your tires. A second later it’s just a paper bag, but for an instant you saw its wide round eye, dilated with fear and headlights. You practically heard its heartbeat. You can taste the wet, rank stink of it.
So I guess if I didn’t expect to be dead, how would I know? I grew up under the shadow of what one lover called my Doom Complex. I never expected to make it past 26. At my 27th birthday party, all the people I love showered me in Congratulations and I Told You So's.
Still, when the signs seem too clear, when the path forward looks so clean-cut, I think for sure, I’m making this up.
For example, today the same song followed me from my kitchen, where my laptop crooned Pandora while I fixed morning toast, down the street to the Target where I re-encountered it on the overhead loud speakers, and finally caught me rushing past it again on a boardwalk run down in Mission Beach. I’m not talking one of those Top 40 Hits, the kind you’d expect to be assaulted with at every turn.
This was old school Jewel, You were meant for me and I was meant for you, reminding me that dreams last so long.
Maybe even after we’re gone.
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To read the previous installment, "Deathwish 045: Liz," go here. To participate in Deathwish, find details here.
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Brenda was born in Gilroy, California and currently lives in San Diego, California