“Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up” ― Veronica Roth
It’s 3am, and for the 4th night in a row, I am preoccupied with my mortality. I think tonight I am closer to accepting it than I was before.
I was wondering briefly why I would worry about this, being so young. I mean, I am isolated and bored here at home, and I did just suffer a traumatic loss of a close loved one. But I am healthy and 19.
Honestly I am scared to death of death.
And then, in a weird stroke of bravery i thought that maybe I should be thankful for death. Death is an idea that gives life flavor. Maybe facing my mortality and having more or less of what could be called an existential crisis at 19 years old is a blessing of some sort, or a gift. My fear and anxiety is making me realize that life really is short, and that I should appreciate every moment.
This is something that many people don’t grasp until it is too late. It is terrifying to speculate what kind of things await me in the future. As someone who has always struggled with algebra and similar endeavors, I fear having to find “x” and all of the other unknowns in that realm.
Maybe I needed to figure out that life is not to be wasted, and also that the world doesn’t revolve around me. The world existed before me, and will exist after me. It is the natural cycle.
I have never feared death, but I have frequently thought of it in the past. I thought of how the seasons mirror it, and also the months of the year. We are all born in January, before everything has really begun, still dormant, but beginning. Our youth runs its course and adulthood begins to emerge in the spring. Our middle-aged years are the summer. The autumn is what follows after, and our winter is our old age. Maybe retirement is the holiday season full of celebrations, before the year ends and a new one possibly and hopefully begins.
I am trying not to overthink this like I overthink everything else, but I also don’t want to not face it. I think i need to acknowledge the reality of life, and push it aside for now. I am in the spring of my life.
Besides, why am I so terrified of dying if I truly, honest to God, believe that my grandmother (who was like a second mother to me) is still around even after she died? Is this another part of the grieving process? Maybe. Maybe I’m searching. Or maybe she really is there sending me Buick LeSabres (The make and model of her car that she was so proud of) whenever I am headed somewhere positive, and maybe the multiple times when I was driving and ended up stopped behind cars with a license plate with her name on it were not coincidences. My mom claims to speak to her in dreams when things are really bad. Are these just hopeful illusions? I may never know these things. in the words of paramore, some things i’ll never know, and i had to let them go. i’m sitting all alone, feeling empty.
i need to let go of my fear and anxiety somehow, because there’s no changing this no matter how hard i try. I yearn so badly to go back to not being preoccupied with death. Just some thoughts.
-Sarah
