“Death is terrifying because it is so ordinary. It happens all the time.”

My mom has been urging me to write my thoughts lately. I've wanted to, or even needed to, but my will and motivation has been low.

Let me preface my words; I've been having an existential crisis for about two months, maybe less. The kind of crisis that consumes about 75% of my day. The kind where I evaluate every moment, interaction, word and person I come across with the anxiety and fear that death will take these things away from me.

Anyway, I was listening to NPR a day or two after the inauguration on my morning commute. I remember, very clearly, sitting about a mile before my exit in bumper to bumper traffic. I wasn't annoyed by the traffic, since I had a cup of coffee and 20 minutes. A blurb about pollution in the United States came on. The conclusion of the story was, "pollution rates have decreased in the past 10 years (good news), extending the average lifespan by 8 months (also good news)."

I panicked. The thought ran through my head, over and over like a ten-ton truck over a helpless body: "I'm going to die someday". I couldn't feel my legs, I was shaking, I had to quickly relearn how to accelerate my car. The thought and feelings settled while I sat in the parking lot, but had by no means dissipated in time from me to start work.

Every since that moment, I haven't really been the same.

I'm not sure why it was that 30 second news broadcast that made me realize my mortality. But, it did. And I'm also unsure to why it felt real, where other indicators of death and dying had seem to exclude me and my loved ones from being human. But it had. I've been spending every day since trying to understand what it means to me. This includes analyzing every thought, feeling and emotion I have. I stare at people, and wonder when it will be there time, who it'll effect, and will they be ready. When I do this to friends and family, I almost puke. The thought of losing them is a more grief that i can currently comprehend in thought; the actuality of it would destroy me. It doesn't make any sense to me, why we're born to die, but the fact is that it doesn't have to make sense.

I keep looking at the world, my world, like it's a game now. We can choose the rules, who we want to play with, and how we can cheat. How we lose, though, is inevitable.

There are a lot of tangents that I can go off on. I'll try to stick to the point. I have more words that I have time right now.

Back on point. I'm scared. Terrified. Anxiety ridden about how/when I meet my demise. That scares me more than almost anything. If it's tomorrow; fuck. My life has been a wasted one. You can try to argue with me that no life is wasted, how every day is a gift, etc. Honestly though I'm just now figuring out who am I, what I like, and what I want to do in my game. If I knew tomorrow was my last day, I'd be sorely disappointed.

I'm more scared about losing someone I love. My family. I'm not quite sure I can even articulate my emotions when thinking about such a thing.

I think I need to stop here, my thoughts are getting fuzzy again. I'll be back here soon to type more words, that may or may not be coherent thoughts about how I'm feeling about the past month.