Holidays 2010...

So in about 5 days or so Thanksgiving 2010 will be upon us and the holiday season will be in full swing. For the first time in my life I am actually apprehensive about this event and I can't quite put my finger on why.

That's not exactly true. I do have a few reasons.

For one thing, I got sick over the holidays two years ago. Sure, I have a lot to be happy about with that, but still, the lingering thought of what could have happened to me is one of the few things that keeps me up at night. Indeed, snippets of the whole experience flood my memory at times and it is actually scary.

I used to take or leave being sick, especially with the flu. I have had flu...the influenza thing we get shots to prevent...twice before in my life that I remember. You know the drill: aches, fever, chills, dizziness, that kind of thing. Once you get those symptoms you really have little choice but to let the whole mess run it's course and help the fevers break by popping tylenol and drinking a lot of fluids and resting. Typically you are down 3 days to a week, and you are good to go.

That's how it started with me two years ago, and when it did I was alone. I live with my mother and she waqs visiting my family in Houston. The poart that is unnerving is the fact that if Mom had come home a day or so later she might have come homke to find me in a coma or dead.

I don't like admitting that. I don't like the thought that I got that close. I don't fear death but I am not ready to go just yet.

So There is my problem. I guess my mortality scares me. I won't leave much of a legacy behind beyond Sean and I hope that he looks on me with the same pride I had in being my father's son. You can't tell with him. Two years ago I almost checked out on him and I would have left him alone to be raised without a father figure in his life, and that unspeakbly scares and angers me.

I don't know how I'll shake this funk, this fear of dread.