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I'm a bit of a wreck today. I've been putting in extra work hours (in addition to my regular eight-to-five) doing some freelance work and have been staying up late working on the project. I'm hoping to be able to divulge some details later because it's quite the neat little project, but that will have to wait for another blog. I don't know if it's the exhaustion from too much compy work and not enough sleep or what, but I've been in an odd emotional place for the past couple of days.
My mind keeps drifting and thinking about divergent realities.
In particular, realities that may have diverged in the summer of 2009.
When I received the call that Erin was trapped at a hospital in Bogotá, Colombia, the first thought that came to my head was "I need to go there and be with her. I need to get her through this and home safely." She had already undergone so much, having gotten progressively ill in a foreign land over the course of couple of weeks. Even after I arrived at the Clinica de Marley in Bogotá and we were finally reunited, it was an incredibly difficult ordeal. The days following the diagnosos of her complicated Pneumonia - a condition with a 40% mortality rate - were emotionally arduous. She slipped in and out of lucidity during those couple of days after I arrived. Her body was devastatingly weak, and her mind was beginning to succumb to the weight of her condition. When we were told that there was a chance she wouldn't make it out of Bogotá alive, she was too weary to respond emotionally. It took all of her focus just to be somewhat present at the moment. I'm glad of that, in a way. I was a broken mess, but perhaps it was something of a good thing that she didn't have to shoulder that emotional burden.
The scenario is my own personal Schrodinger's Box. More frequently than I'd like, I find myself thinking about what might have been if I hadn't flown out. What if I had chosen to delay my departure? would Erin have made it? Did I collapse the wave funtion by making the choice that I did? Or is there another Jay in a parallel universe who is, at this moment, living a reality in which Erin was untimely ripped from his life? I can't stand the thought. Every time I consider the possibility, gravity intensifies. I feel my heart being pulled to the ground and my knees buckling. When I'm alone and the thought creeps up on me, I need to pause to collect myself. The idea of living without Erin is unbearable. When I'm with her and the thought slips in, the sight of her face brings a comfort I'd not ever known until we were reunited in September after she'd spent a month recovering with her parents in Western Massachusetts.
There's a crushing loneliness that overtakes me when the idea really sinks in. The possibility of what could've happened makes my heart sieze.
When I look at Erin, and when I see her beginning to show, a small portion deep inside of me says a little prayer of thanks that she's still here by my side. When I think about our child - right now no bigger than an olive - growing inside her, a little voice in my head gives a proclamation of gratitude that we're together and have not missed the opportunity to have a child with each other.
I feel blessed to no end when I wake up beside Erin or share a meal together or curl up on the couch to watch a video. I feel a bit melancholy, too, that maybe there's a world out there without her, and on that world is a hopelessly sad Jay.
