It is tough business getting older.

I wouldn’t recommend it.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to be here but being human is a complex business to handle.

Each year as my birthday approaches, it is like Steven Tyler singing those high “Dream On” cords, Axel rose screaming into the microphone, Slash whaling on his guitar, and the entire band of Metallica jamming to “Sandman.”  Followed by John Williams leading the London, Chicago, or Boston Symphony Orchestra with the “Star Wars theme.”

My body feels it; my mind feels it – endlessly.

I have this want and will to live but at the same time I feel as if I have to shed old lives and old ways at the exact same time.

I take a step forward by going in reverse.

I pause, look around, and then take a big leap with both feet – stronger and with more momentum than before.  

My body is free from gravity because my mind is free from my body.

When I step in reverse I grieve.  I know I am grieving because tears fall at random times.  Waves come over me and I don’t even know why.  I feel it in my chest and then once it cycles through, it stops as quickly as it comes on.

By taking a step forward sometimes you have to let go and remember the best you can in your heart of hearts of what was.

I always seem to grieve for my friend, Mark.  I feel him almost picking me up and shaking me sometimes and saying, “Tessa, you are here.  Enjoy it.”

“Mark, I am, just give me a half of second.  Then we can eat spaghetti.”

Then, I see my friend, Adam who I became friends with through the years at the CF clinic in Minnesota. He was a year younger than me.  We were supposed to be in a CF poster together but one of us fell ill. We went to CF camp together and besides his height, as he was shorter than me, I remember his laugh the most.  It originated from his belly and just erupted like the ocean smashing up against a wall of rocks and then retreating, settling back into its natural form.  The echo he created hit inside of you, and you had but no choice to laugh with him. So full of life, so full of strength, and yet so full of sorrow.

Even when he was 14 he fought so hard.  He had massive power in him even when his weight did not resemble that strength.  He was so thin even then.

I found out about him passing when I worked in medical records at the Fairview-University Medical Center.

One evening looking for a chart I had to pull for the next day’s clinic, I spotted Adam’s chart.  I noticed he had quite a few surfing the correspondence desks as of late. I figured he must be admitted. Then, I looked over onto a desk and I saw “Death Certificate” and I just fell into sobs.

He passed at 21 years.

I was 22.

Fuck.

You see, I think, I believe, I am remembering him specifically right now because not only because my age just turned over another notch, but he really could have used the medication that is coming out.  Much more than I.  And the medication may or may not have helped him; it may or may not help me – but the possibility is there and it is there to help thousands.

So, I sigh.

What does one do with all this?

Hit the drum harder.

Have stronger faith in what is to come.

Laugh harder and more often.

Eat everything I can.

Thank everyone and anyone that gives me a time of day, each and every day.

Love.

Love more.

Love all the time.

I must retreat and settle back into my old, and yet very new rhythms.

Life in my mind is becoming infinite, so my body must become too.

So – 

I sit

Cross-legged.

Palms up.

I hold –

All the good energy I can,

All the love possible,

And I allow my tears to fall.

And then, I just look up,

And Smile.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

“Now, Mark – we can eat.”