I don’t think I cognitively thought about my own death as a certain reality until my actual wedding day. Strange, as I’m sure most individuals think about their various hopes and dreams on a day like that. For me it seemed like the last real milestone in life that I would reach that would be a big deal to those around me.
I did get married on Halloween, so a stickler for the unconventional, but still…
After you fulfill what you perceive to be a life milestone, you start to reconsider the meaning of it all. What actually made me think that I needed to do said thing(s)? I certainly don’t feel any different. If anything, I feel fooled by society that I needed to do, or accomplish, or be defined by a pre determined set of criteria. I checked all the boxes, what now? (Throw out the stupid list!)
I find it at every step in my path. In reality, all it did was provide a distraction from my own impending death. So now what? Moving on towards a pointless path is starting to piss me off. Is this what happens? As you age you become more self aware of your impending doom and your patience just dwindles? I’m starting to think so.
I used to hear about folks uprooting or “ruining” their lives and it would puzzle me. Why work so hard to throw it all away? Now I’m starting to understand it because it’s all bullshit!
As years pass, the clock starts to speed up. More and more things become unrealistic or unattainable. Your body (youth) fades and you’re left struggling to find all the small things in life that you so desperately yearn for. Opportunity (and hope) shrink. You wasted all that time in life focusing on the wrong things and now it seems so distant to find the right things. If you did, time would certainly change your priorities and you’d be left questioning it all over again. Nothing remains constant. All people and things change. You change. Cellularly and psychologically.
Nostalgia, I’m learning, is probably one of the cruelest emotions. Well, that and the guise of love wrapped in a lust bubble that has burst.
Or worse, love in it’s truest unconditional form lost to death.