Fear

One of my college friends died last week, and the knowledge is now challenging my belief that I will live forever. Not to mention the unstated belief that it’ll be a quality life, at that.

It’s scary when your contemporaries disappear forever. And while I believe you have to be strong in order to survive the process of aging (ohmygod! Another white hair. A new wrinkle! And the good knee is now bad, wtf?) you have to be even stronger to take your vanishing shared landscape in stride.

I’ve been staring at things I take for granted. My spouse. My kids. The dogs. (ZOMG, Zoey pulled the ultimate disappearing act this morning, and I didn’t discover it until I returned home to find her on the front step.) Mom. Siblings. Best friends.

There’s no end to the potential empty holes in my life.

And I don’t know what to do about it other than to continue the daily struggle of living and loving. The most terrifying bit is not losing the struggle, but that someone I love will lose theirs. The scariest piece of aging is to be the last one standing.

(Yeah, let’s just gloss right over my fear of making a mistake–the thing which is holding me back in my solos. I’m combating that by making the mistake and singing ON, dammit. Today’s was messing up on the timing and coming in late. I’m really good at finding ways to screw up, too.)

Still working on character arcs. I think, just to work through my own personal fear of people I love dying, I’m going to add that to his burdens. It might not help me come to any conclusion, but I’ll be examining it via him, and that’s not such a bad way of working through it to gain some acceptance.

Because Kevin gone? He was only a year older.

Takeaway: Live and love like there’s no tomorrow and follow your dreams today.