Because of my recent medical troubles, I’ve been stuck at home. It’s killing me. Usually I love to be at home. I do my writing and editing here. It’s comfortable. My easy chair fits my ass perfectly. I have all the coffee I could want. Yet, it’s still killing me.

Normally I go out in the morning, either to the gym or too the park. I also walk dogs and do some obedience training at the local shelter, or just pick up trash along the road (I have a grabber, I don’t use my hands). But I can’t do that until I find out what is wrong with my heart. The doctor doesn’t want me doing anything strenuous, especially in the heat. Did I mention that something is killing me.

My heart has been acting all wonky. It starts out fine, but by early afternoon, my heart is pounding so hard that I can feel it in my fingertips. My blood pressure shoots up (usually 140/90, with a rapid pulse). I don’t know what’s going on. It’s like having a panic attack without the panic.

I have a fear of death. I think most people do. My fear comes from worrying that I will die before I finish all of my stories, though I know that I inevitably will. With every story I write, a new one brews in my head. A day will come where I die without that story finished. It’s terrifying. Like all writers, I am an egomaniac. I feel that I have something important to say, even though I realize that my words are no more important than anyone else’s. Yet I keep typing away, and that fear of death before completion haunts me.

I like to think that my heart, my metaphorical heart, is good. But the real one isn’t. I was morbidly obese for many years. I’m on a ton of medicines, and more medicines to fight those side effects, leading to more side effects, etc. And I am not happy. I am not calm. I am nothing more than a morbid bit of flesh, and when I die, I will leave behind a few stories, a grave stone, and a pine box.

Being homebound isn’t just killing me, it’s making me think about death against my will. I want to be outside. I want to help at the shelter. I want to pick up trash. I want to do my service to the community, to repay all that they do for me. It seems that the universe has other plans.

There’s a Yiddish proverb: Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht. Man plans and God laughs. Maybe a better quote is from Robert Burns. The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, / Gang aft agley. That’s exactly how I feel. I am the man. I am the house. A house mouse.