When Time's the Currency of Life ...

Alright, so this one is morbid and depressing.  But since this is an outlet for what's in my head?  Here's where it has to go ... sorry.  Feel free to keep on clicking to the next site.  The next post will be better, I promise.

So ... when I was on dialysis, the nurses told us that the five year survival rate on dialysis is 60%.  But I looked it up myself.   From the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the five year survival rate for dialysis patients is 35.8%.  That's less than half.   That number hit me so hard at the time.   Here I'd found someone who was amazing ... and my chance of spending more than five years with him was less than 50/50.

It hit me hard enough that I talked to a good friends of ours about it.  We were going to dinner before seeing a concert, and I told her what I'd found out.  She looked shocked ... but tried to say it didn't matter that it would all be alright.   I told her people on dialysis don't die of kidney failure.  They die of heart attack or stroke ... and those happen suddenly.  You can't plan for them.  So I made her promise that if something did happen to me, that she would take care of Stoney.  I know eventually we all have to get through hard times on our own ... but I wanted her to make sure in the beginning he wasn't alone.

So I wound up getting a kidney, as I've proudly announced here.   And, FYI, the five year survival rate for transplant?  85.5%.   That number is so comforting ... and I've stopped having panic attacks thinking about how I need to write letters to my loved ones and get Stoney on my car title and get a will drawn up.  I've become a little more zen about the whole situation.  But, let's be honest, it's easy to be zen when you aren't being stuck with needles three times a week. 

So anyhow ... fast forward to now.   Have you heard of Jason Isbell?   He's this amazingly talented song writer.   The first song of his I ever fell in love with was Goddamn Lonely Love.   It's just heartbreakingly beautiful.   And while I could fill a canyon with compliments on him and his music ... here's what you need to know.  Whether consciously or subconsciously, his songs are filled with misery.   He wrote a song called Elephant that I heard around the time that my cousin was dying of cancer.  That song, while amazing, was like a punch in the gut.

Then came If We Were Vampires ...

Sounds like a fun name, right?  It's not.  It's so soul crushingly depressing that this may be the thing that finally makes me say, "I'm out."
 
If we were vampires and death was a joke
We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke
Laugh at all the lovers and their plans
I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand
Maybe time running out is a gift
I'll work hard 'til the end of my shift
And give you every second I can find
And hope it isn't me who's left behind

It's knowing that this can't go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we'll get forty years together
But one day I'll be gone
Or one day you'll be gone
So I have tears in my eyes just copying those lyrics.  Maybe it's different for other people ... we all know we're going to die someday.   But knowing that your clock is running a little faster than others ... it makes this song torture.

I'm not telling anyone not to listen to it.   In fact, please go check Jason Isbell out if you haven't.  He has some beautiful songs (including the one above) ... listen to Goddamn Lonely Love and Traveling Alone and Flying Over Water and Cover Me Up.   It's all good.  I can't honestly name a single song I don't like ... except for the one above.  Because it's just too much ... because neither option is good.  I don't want to be the one left behind ... but I know what it feels like to worry about leaving him behind.

I got green and I got blues
And everyday there's a little less difference between the two
I belly-up and disappear
Well I ain't really drowning 'cause I see the beach from here

And I could take a Greyhound home but when I got there it'd be gone
Along with everything a home is made up of
So I'll take two of what you're having and I'll take all of what you got
To kill this goddamn lonely, goddamn lonely love

Jason Isbell (Drive-By-Truckers - Goddamn Lonely Love