In favor of detachment

now that i know more about death -- coming close to my own, watching my father's -- now that today we drive my mother home to what was their house, but is now simply hers, now that the absence stretches before us like a useless trinket, now that i know that no matter how healthy i feel, however ordinary or normal, i will always be one doctor's visit away from a terminal diagnosis, now. now what?

now it seems the only reasonable response is detachment. yes, i have heard the arguments for jumping back into life with more gusto than ever, now that one knows how short life really is. it is one response. another is detachment. maybe if i'm lucky it'll be detachment in the Buddhist sense of the word" "Detachment as release from desire and consequently from suffering..." as our good friend wikipedia describes it. If I'm lucky. 
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what is detachment in the other sense of the word, i wonder? again, wikipedia

• Emotional detachment, in psychology, refers to "inability to connect" or "mental assertiveness"

• Detachment (philosophy), the state of lacking material desire

• Detachment (military), a military unit which has left its parent unit altogether

ah, that last one is all too poignant. it sounds like i'm wallowing -- am i? i think maybe, i'm tired of being so sensitive. that which may have made me a decent writer no longer serves me in the real world. maybe if there's something to learn from the last year, it's to step back, to raise up some invisible shield that keeps me from feeling so much and so deeply. it's not resignation, it's self-preservation, right? right now, it honestly feels like the only reasonable response. x