I Separate My Life into Segments

I separate my life into segments.  I suppose everyone does this.  Childhood, high school, college, post-college career, marriage, kids, etc.  My divisions aren’t so mundane.  I’ve felt this way about life ever since my brother passed away when I was 18.  For a while that was it; a pre-Nick’s death phase and a post-Nick’s death phase.  As I got older I realized how different a person I had become, and I’ve chalked a lot of that up to losing my brother.  But people change.  Part of it is just growing up.  A lot has changed since I was 18.

More recently I’ve been forced to look at my life again, and divide it up further.  In August of 2011 I was diagnosed with ALS, which brought a new phase in my life and forced me yet again to see life in a new way.  Now I had my pre-Nick’s passing phase and my post-Nick’s passing phase, as well as my pre-ALS phase and my post-ALS phase.  I put it this way because obviously the two events are unrelated so though it may seem to make sense to define them on a purely chronological (i.e. non-overlapping) basis, their exclusivity does not allow for this treatment. 

I try to remember back to a previous phase.  It’s been over ten years since Nick passed and just over two since my diagnosis.  Obviously looking back two years is easier than ten, but it seems that imagining life in any phase outside of the current one is difficult.  The brain quickly adapts to new circumstances; memories of a previous life quickly become distant. 

It is what it is because of the past, and I am what I am because of the past.  I can look back, tell stories, and try to remember what it was like, but today is what matters; today is what’s real.