Echoes

A few weeks ago, I read Heavier than Heaven.  If you're unfamiliar, it's one of the better known biographies about Kurt Cobain. 

The book left me in tears, a rare thing.

Ever since, I've thought quite a bit about death, about how we impact people while we're alive, the things we do to make the world better, or worse.

I'm not sure if it's because I also turned 30 last year and graduated from graduate school,

or if, for the first time in my life, I'm free from school for the unforeseen future, 

but i've been thinking a lot about death.

Often times, at night when I lie down to bed, I am struck with a fear of death and loss. 

Not only for myself, but especially for those around me and those I love.  I have always had a decent amount of anxiety surrounding the loss of a loved one, but it's becoming paralyzing.

It's not only at night that my anxiety strikes either. 

I find myself thinking more and more about aging, about life, the prospect of death, what all of this really means, why the fuck we're here, and you know, the normal stupid shit that we probably all think about at some point.

But is it normal to be paralyzed by these things?  It happens to all of us, we must all live through it, and we will all die.  I find myself repeating this frequently in my head in an effort to calm my mind. But I don't know that it does any good. 

Tied within all of this is this strange anxiety that I am not well liked, that my growth from teenager to adult has made me dull, boring, obnoxious, annoying and a number of other adjectives that are entirely unpleasant.  Did growing up mean killing what little bit of spontaneity and passion I had?  I have never been the most confident person, but I used to know that I was liked.  I used to feel loved by many.  I used to feel funny, I used to feel like I could make people laugh.  I don't know that I feel that anymore.  I'm leaning towards no.  I'm only 30.

I'm already 30. 

I felt the only place to turn is here.  I have been unable to write about my feelings for so long.  I didn't have any feelings, it seemed.  I had nothing to say, or at least nothing that felt important enough to put down on paper.  But now I feel all of this, constantly, maybe it's time I started fleshing things out with words again. I'm really not sure where to begin.

The passage of time is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.  The world is the same as it always has been, and yet it's completely different.

We are destroying our planet, our technologies have progressed tenfold within such a short time, even in my lifetime.

Gone are the days where social media was nonexistent and we had to call each other and leave messages on our parent's answering machines to get in touch with our friends.

I think some of the fear in my generation, or maybe it's just me? but some of the fear may lie in this belief that we will be left behind.  In ways, we already have been, financially, environmentally

what was left for us was already destroyed by generations before us.  We are left with fleeting and fuzzy memories of a clean planet.  and yet there has always been violence and destruction amongst people. 

Perhaps now, as an adult, I understand it better.  I understand that it will always be this way and it's harder to move beyond that.  As children, we have so much hope, we believe we are all destined for greatness.  Then we realize as we grow older that most people are just destined to be ordinary.  

I think a lot about what people would say if I died, what they will say when I do. 

I suppose all we can do is live a life that aligns with how we want to be remembered. 

Now, I just have to figure out how to do that while reconciling all these dark thoughts and feelings in my head. 

let it begin.