Headaches, weddings, and then some...

Today, was the first day in nearly a week and a half where I haven't had a splitting migraine like headache just about exactly 4 hours after I woke up. It's nice, really nice to be pain free like that, but at the same time after having it been so consistent there's still a little fear in the back of my head that this is only a tease. I'm not sure quite when that irrational fear crept up on me, but if I'm sick for more than a week I don't really enjoy the places that my thoughts go to. Intense feelings of inevitability; that I'm never going to get better and I'm only going to get worse. Unrealistic and ridiculous, I know, but that doesn't prevent them from coming. Maybe it was from watching my uncle degrade in the months leading up to his death, maybe just the amount of times I've been sick, or just one too many episodes of House.

In other news, I finally e-mailed myself home a bunch quotes and sayings that I had collected while I was at work that I wanted to add to my Commonplace Book. So far it consists mostly quotes and the definition of what it is taped on the inside cover lest I ever forget. If I had a color printer I feel like it might fill up faster, but then again, not having one just means maybe I can coerce myself into drawing or constructing something artistic rather than easy.

I went to a wedding on Saturday for a friend of mine who I knew from high school. We were definitely friends then and had managed, more or less, to keep in semi consistent contact throughout the college years but I'll admit, I was kinda surprised when I got the invite. Anyway, it was a beautiful, hi tech, 'contemporary christian' wedding as it gets. (Interestingly enough, he found the exact same evangelical christian group on his college campus that I found on mine, which could have been enough of a connection...) Except for the headache I still had at that point, exacerbated by the flashing lights and loud dance music, that is. I found out that I had a hidden boccie ball talent I never knew about. He also had up a video camera where guests could step out of the reception and leave a message, personal, crazy, or a mildly inebriated mix of both. We did a group crazy one from high school, but I did go back and leave him a personal, dare I say even religiously inspirational, message to him and his new bride. It was probably one of the first times in the past year I've referred to anything remotely christian/religious.

My uncle came up in conversation again tonight. It's strange how from June-Sept his memory always seems to resurface just a little more than it would have any other time of the year. It's like there's still an indent in the fabric of life where he's missing from. Anyway, his first name was one of the pen-names I used in college when I was writing poetry I didn't want to have to explain to the fellowship. I sent the link to said poem to Dzia, whom I've had the greatest resurgence of a relationship with since we talked early last month, and she asked me to explain the name that I used. So I did, and I of course thought of my uncle, and then something hit me that I never quite thought of before. I was thinking about how much else I wish he could teach me, guitar, music, painting, drawing... when I realized he taught me something infinitely more valuable. Infinitely more personal. In that last day I spent with him, he taught me how to die.

As morbid as that may sound it gives me as much greater level of peace and contentment in the ongoing process of dealing with him being gone. Up until now, I think I felt a more significant touch of jealousy toward my cousins than I was aware of. They had learned music and art from him while I just got to see him on holidays and think on memories of watching in awe rather than being taught to participate with. (There was one time, only one, that I can ever remember participating musically with him to such a point where he looked at me and smiled, and took notice. Him, my cousins, and I broke out in Rufus Wainwright's Hallelujah for a reason now lost to time) That day I spent with him, watching the Yankees, talking about life and relationships, eating a whole pint of Strawberry Hagen Daaz.... all in the face of an inevitable amount of just days left... Maybe what I learned that day can't be accurately passed on in words, but to be able to breath just a little bit easier when the memory of him stirs this time next year will make all the difference.