zoë siskos

In high school I was a jock. Basketball and volleyball were my games (if you’ve seen my height you’d understand why) but I also loved playing softball and basically any sport that required me to sweat my balls ovaries off.

Preparing for the games required more than just warming up your muscles, throwing the ball around and working up the start of a good sweat; my best games were when I mentally prepared myself, visualized me jumping high, the ball going through the hoop or whatever it took to win.

But how do you prepare yourself for something you don’t want to happen? What do you do when you know the inevitable is going to come and there is nothing you can do to stop it? Is visualizing still the best method?

My Dad’s death is gaining on us, faster than anyone in my family can keep up with.  And I find myself imagining what it’s going to be like. I find myself daydreaming about the funeral, about my speech, about when it’s going to happen, where am I going to be, if I’m going to cry, what the weather is going to be like.

I don’t think the visualization is helping and I think it’s because there is no outcome that I want. You see, when it was a volleyball game I KNEW how I wanted to smash that ball. I KNEW how high I wanted to jump. I KNEW what I wanted to happen. But what I want to happen with my Dad is impossible. And any realistic scenario I can imagine -  a sunny day or a rainy day, sitting in my office at the time of the call or at home in the middle of my sleep – nothing is how I will ever want it to be.

I am torturing myself. But I don’t know what else to think about.