I’d never been to Italy until this spring, when, after my mother saying for literally my entire life that we would go to Italy next summer, we finally made it across the Atlantic. I didn’t have a passport until March, when I drove out to Glendale to stand in line for three hours, text my mom dark humor to hide how upset I was, and tried and failed not to cry in line every several minutes. I was cash-broke at the time, and a hundred and fifty dollars to cross imaginary lines was absurd (it still is!), and I had to go to a job I hated at a store I hated where I’d get off half an hour late and come home and yell to my roommate, who always listened and then told me to quit.
So after all of that, and worrying that my passport would then not come on time, we made it to Italy, even my mom, who had told me “not to make her go” at least once a day for two weeks prior. Pompeii wasn’t pretty, per se (Venice was my favorite city, but of course I, the San Diegan, would most like the city that was completely over water, on the edge of a sea), and it was pretty kitschy and touristy, which I hated (but still not as much as Rome!). All I wanted out of Pompeii, I told my sister, on the weird commuter rail train where we had to resort to our noise-canceling earbuds to block out the guys who came on and played the accordion for each individual car, was to contemplate the inevitability of death.
I did not share this with my mother, who had handwritten and detailed notes of every architectural structure in the ruins. All she wanted was to educate us on some houses, which she did quite well, but once you’ve seen one of those houses, you’ve seen them all.
So, I got my sister to take a picture of me in Pompeii, when we’d finally been allowed to wander off. I posted it later on Instagram, with a Doctor Who quote, naturally, because Doctor Who is also about the inevitability of death. “Morituri te salutant,” we who are about to die salute you.
Aren’t we always perpetually about to die? Each person’s life is a series of choices, many of which will lead to one’s death. Go to stupid, uninspiring minimum wage job, or never go back, lose your job, and have no income? Sleep, or stay awake for several days straight to catch up on that astronomically unreachable writing goal that you’re beating yourself up over not hitting? Cook food and eat, or sit at your desk in a catatonic state and watch the fourth episode of Madam Secretary that you really haven’t paid attention to because you’ve been scrolling Tumblr?
(I’ve never encountered any of these decisions, Mom. Get off my blog.)
We who are about to die salute you! I just graduated college, and I feel like I have a lot of work experience and very little life experience! And still not enough of either to be gainfully employed! And I am always, perpetually, one step closer to death! Isn’t that terrifying and wonderful? Doesn’t it put this all into perspective? Don’t you just want to sneak out of your beach-themed childhood bedroom at your parents’ house at 1 AM on a Tuesday and go jump in the lake that’s been posted as ‘NO SWIMMING’ since you were born?
(I’m not going to do that, Mom, I don’t even know how to take the screen off my window. Get off my blog.)
There is so much to do, and so much to say, and so many questions to ask, and all of it is rattling around up in my brain, waiting to spill out, given enough time. And there is never, never enough time.
Morituri te salutant.
M.P. Rosalia 