Les Petits Morts

A good friend of mine has been asking me to think through my "small deaths," those occurences and events in our lives that sometimes level, sometimes shape, but always fundamentally alter who we are and how we see our selves.

There are certainly many large deaths in my chiffarobe, and I have thought about them ad nauseum. But what about the small ones?

For instance, my maternal aunt, upon learning that I had moved out of my grandparent's house at 17 because they were stealing money from me (large death)--and it was my dad's death benefits they were stealing (doubly large death)-- she was very angry with me. I didn't, and don't, understand why the hell she would be mad at me, so I asked her to meet with me during my work lunch break. I waited for 45 minutes past our scheduled meeting time; she never showed up. Small death. I didn't speak to her after that for 5 years, and it was I that sought her out.

I wonder sometimes: is it the large deaths or the small ones that truly eat away at who we are? As I scan my list of small deaths, and think about the large ones, I realize something: we often do not have control over the large ones, but we do have some control (often) over the small ones.