a short ramble about dying or whatever
content warning: death (obviously), possibly existentialism? i just read a blog post about someone dying and it's resurfaced my almost constant awareness of mortality, so i figured i'd write about it. writing blog posts about things seems to make me stop fixating on them, so maybe i can nip this in the bud by rambling about it.
i was around twelve- no older than thirteen- when i became consciously aware of death. i've always heard people describe that moment of awakening as the effect of an event. like, your dog dies or you attend your grandmother's funeral, and suddenly you're still a child but now you know you'll stop existing some day. i never had a moment like that. the reaper never whispered "memento mori" in my ear1. all i remember happening is that i was lying in bed, using my newfound ability to have conscious thoughts, and suddenly i realized that there was an inevitable end to my life.
that awareness has been haunting me since, fading in for any amount of time before vanishing. i lost tons of sleep for the first couple years as my brain tormented me through the silence of several nights in a row, then quieted itself long enough to let me forget, before coming back to ruin a few more nights. that cycle repeated for a while, before the throws of depression and teenagerdom created a powerful apathy inside me that could tear through the onslaught like a ship breaking waves2.
eventually, though, i scrapped my apathetic worldview in favour of, uh, feeling things. certainly a better way to live but it meant the next wave could hit me unchallenged. i guess that phrasing is somewhat misleading, because really, the waves had gotten smaller by then. i've spent plenty of years occasionally freaking out about my seemingly imminent death, but it isn't consuming months at a time anymore. it's more of a dull ache, occasionally flaring up, but the overall effect is just that i feel a little worse all the time. i guess everybody gets that, though.
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man, what a bummer ending. i feel like this was gonna go somewhere when i started but then i lost the plot. hopefully this doesn't come off like me saying "skill issue" to that blog i mentioned. would it be more polite to link the post? i don't want to volunteer other people to be associated with my nonsense- it seems like a rude thing to do. wish there was a social rulebook for this but as usual i'm forced to wing it. in conclusion, eat your veggies and don't settle for nothing, i guess.
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