The Kids

The twins are now 5 months old, and since they were about 4 months I can't stop thinking about death. Or I should say, death feels much more real to me. Palpable. The fact that I am going to die. Also the fact that my wife and I are actually going to get old together. Like, I can actually imagine it as a real thing and not some abstraction.

Maybe it has something to do with the sudden very real feeling (to me) about the type of person I have become: a parent. It's absolutely something from which there is no turning back, no matter how terrified I may get.

How do other people do this? I don't mean to sound like some depressed teen, but how do you walk around knowing full well that you will one day no longer exist. That people you love will suffer and feel immense sadness about your absence. And then they will move on.

Every time I drive a car or cross the street I think: if I die now, my kids will have no father. My wife will have to raise them alone. I won't see them grow up. (I won't even go into what it's like to imagine something hapening to one or both of my kids.)

I understand more than ever the urge to run, to try and escape it all. It's too big, too impossible to imagine, but also way too real. But I don't understand how anyone does actually run. It's all right there, no matter where you go or how much you drink or the drugs you do.

Your sins will find you. It's like a Bruce Springsteen song. The couple beat down by life, but still somehow carrying on, their dead hopes and dreams surrounding them. The River. Racing in the Streets. Atlantic City. The Promisedland.