No Guarantees, Dangerous Dissonance, Never Surprised.

I've officially passed over to 24 hour time keeping. Amongst the many reasons is that my day job essentially insisted that we use it. 

It's 21:09, about 30 minutes from my bed time. That's if I'm lucky and the melatonin kicks in. 

This week I did indeed start working a bit of a normal job with scheduled hours. I believe it will be better for my mental health than literally driving around the Valley freelancing. Cue the chicken with its head cut off Giphy, because that's how I've felt. 

What I haven't felt, is any real, raw or scary emotions that I used to feel a bit more often.  I lost two uncles and an aunt to Covid Sars 19, with co-morbidities. 

Yes none of them were young or terribly healthy. Nonetheless losing a little piece of family is still difficult. 

I've yet to really deeply process this myself. I didn't cry when I heard about either instance because I was either on the way to an event for some work, or exhausted, sleep deprived and ready to drive home. 

And this actually reminds me, that in life among others, there truly aren't any guarantees.  Think about it.  You can't bribe death for another year longer. You can't theorize with quantum physics your way out of an accident of some sort. 

Some things aren't guaranteed yet they are still somehow in the darndest way, set ever so firmly, into stone.

It's similar to the Genei in a bottle. Which by the way just taking a stab at popular culture why was any Genei ever scrunhed up into a lamp? Like why not a jug or jar or vase? Makes way more logical sense doesn't it?  Anyway, genies get called up in every film and explicitly explain they don't deal in death, romance, or occultism.  (Which are probably the biggest priorities for many people.). Geneis as powerful as they get portrayed, often can't even hand out guarantees.  I don't believe risk can be completely ever eradicated..

Anyway, moving on and back to loss. Personally, after having seen as many family members as I've seen dying or die from cancer, age or accidents, it's numbed me a lot over the time I've been on this planet. It's this morbid notch in the belt psuedo-sensation that creeps up when you get that phone call or that email. It stuns you. Every time it's stunned me for a solid 30 to 60 seconds. Physically stunned and silenced.

And I think one of the hardest things about it, is the sheer surprise.  It's always unexpected. Here in America we quite literally act and behave as if everyone we've ever met is going to live either 100 or forever. 

Maybe that's ok for some. For me however I think there is a danger in this dissonance. Getting hit with surprise after surprise, which in reality is what psychological professionals call "shock"- I'm legitimately surprised  I can get surprised anymore.  

Granted my sisters did play an excessive amount of hide-and-seek, which was undoubtedly fun. But I daresay it fried small parts of my brain in the 'shock and awe' department. (Hippocampus? Idk.)

Time for sleep. Not getting 8 hours but 6 will suffice, Ciao.