#existensialism

I could look back on my life with clarity and conviction. This is enough. It has to be enough. Without regrets. I'd like to think I'd take it with complete acceptance. What would the alternative be? What would fighting it feel like? What would abject terror and panic look like?

I might look back on all the times I've cancelled plans to eat pizza and watch Netflix, the times I've driven somewhere and changed my mind at the last minute, turned around and gone home, just to play on my phone for hours. All the times I've decided 'this isn't for me'. The relationships I've ended. The opportunities that didn't come my way. Or they did, but turned out to be something different. When I said no, was it out of a knowing, or was it out of fear? I might think about whether I'd ever have sex again. Did I love enough? Open myself up enough? Did I try hard enough to make something of myself? Or have I had it too easy?

I don't know for certain how I'd feel or what I'd do. But I do know that all these questions would be answered. The burden of trying to figure these things out would be given a decisive stamp of ‘what does it fucking matter?’ There would be finality.  And I’d continue to live my last days without any pressure to figure it out. Why waste any more time? I could choose to look from every angle with closure, acceptance, gratitude, and absolute clarity.

Really, the fear isn’t about death.

The fear is that I’ll go to the doctors, and everything will be fine. Nothing will be ‘wrong’ with me. And I’ll be faced with the same exhaustion without being able to blame it on biology. I’ll be faced with the same paradox of infinite choices and how I choose to assign meaning to them. Without really knowing the point or how it will end. More than likely, this is why I’m so tired. It’s not my body…It’s being so painfully conscious of what it all means.  

What would it look like if I just stopped?

What would it look like if I stopped digging?  Stopped searching? If I can imagine the acceptance of death. Then surely I can imagine the acceptance of life. I can live each moment seeing the simple beauty in everything, as if I’ve already arrived - without living in the potential of a future that hasn’t happened – or a past that can’t be changed.

What would it look like if I lived my current life as if I were already enough?

Not because I’m dying. But because I decided I am.