I came to the conclusion that this will be my last year here.
Today, 11/05/2026.
A month and a few days before my 22nd birthday.
22 is a good number,
though it does not even represent a quarter
of the average human lifespan.
There is something deeply unsettling
about realizing time can suddenly become finite.
Not in the abstract way people like to romanticize.
Not in the poetic sense
that makes others speak of sunsets, gratitude, and living fully.
No,
it becomes arithmetic.
a number,
an estimate,
a quiet expiration date lingering in the background
of every ordinary moment.
For most of my life,
I moved as if time were an infinite resource.
Something guaranteed.
Something so painfully ordinary
that I never once thought to question it.
And now even that illusion has been taken from me.
Compressed into something smaller,
narrower,
manageable enough to count.
How strange it is
to continue existing after that.
To keep
studying,
answering messages,
pretending future tense is still a language I fluently speak.
Everything feels faintly absurd now.
Deadlines.
Long term plans.
The casual arrogance of the word âlater.â
As if "later" belongs to everyone equally.
I have not discovered hidden beauty
within the fragility of existence.
Not the kind of tired sleep fixes.
A heavier kind.
A structural exhaustion.
The kind that settles quietly
into your bones, your thoughts, your breathing.
As if some essential part of me
has already begun mourning something
that has not happened yet.
Perhaps that is the cruelest part.
Not death itself.
But being made aware of it
far too early.
Being forced to carry its outline
through otherwise ordinary days.
There is no elegant conclusion to this.
No profound lesson.
No inspiring final perspective.
I am 21 years old,
and I was never meant
to become this familiar with endings.
