Monday, a week from now

It looms. Dark and gloomy. Like an oil spill, slowly spreading towards me. The sludge blackens out the clear blue waters.

I keep saying to myself that I'll live. Which is true. And then I am reminded of the times I have repeated that to myself. Usually lying somewhere incapacitated. On a riverbank in the wilderness with a broken ankle. In a puddle next to a dirt road, watching my horse gallop off in the distance. On the porch of a ski lodge, feeling the opiates flatten out the pain spikes. At a first responder course, getting the drowning sensation in a tube, half-filled with water. Watching Earth from an open airplane door twelve thousand feet above, with nothing in between me and her. Again, a few minutes later, while rushing towards her at 120 mph.

This time, I am not worried that I will break a bone or lose a part of me.

Well, not a physical part of me, anyway.