on the last day

ryan and i just rounded out a long weekend with a few episodes of the Ricky Gervais Show (as shown in HBO, and pictured below)

ricky, steve and karl were talking about death as they often do. ricky brought up the idea that life would be different if everyone was guaranteed that they would die peacefully in their sleep.

not to be morbid, but i was then lead to think about what i would do given only one full day left to live. if i knew that i would die in my sleep the next night. i have two answers to this situation, one is an idealized version of the last day, the other is how i think i would actually, really react if told i would die that night.

the ideal version of how i would react would be calm. if told i would die in my sleep that night, i would probably want to spend my last day at home with ryan and the cats. maybe have pancakes for breakfast and go for a walk along one of the trails behind our house. i would want everything to be normal. maybe i'd change the litter boxes just to fool myself into a cool state of normalcy. ryan and i would probably watch some old doctor who, or a few episodes of Ashes to Ashes or TUF. Then to round it out, I'd probably want to go out to dinner somewhere. seafood maybe, or thai food? and i'd want to spend my last waking moments in the arms of my best friend and lover, my ryan.

that sounds like a lovely day.

what i think would really happen though... the day might end up the way i described above, but not before greedily gorging on junk food until i felt ill. then in a fit of guilt and self pity i'd probably run off somewhere solemn. i think i'd reach out to the ocean actually. i would cry for myself and feel dissatisfied.

i think this is where i would end up if i were alone. this is my deep dark side. my self pitying side. my ugly side.

and in my scenario of what i would do on the last day, it's ryan who saves me. he rescues me from my tears, reminds me of the good i've done, reminds me what i mean to him, and then takes me home where we spend my final day together in each other's arms.

so all this is going through my head as we're watching the ricky gervais show and it occurs to me as if for the first time, i love ryan.

of course i love him, we've been happily married for over six years. but it still surprises me whenever that thought--pure and whole--pops into my head unexpectedly.

ryan always saves me. in any state of mind or matter, ryan always saves me.