Before you read any further, if you’re suffering any amount of depression, I don’t think it wise to read this post. I’m in my dark place now and writing is one of the ways I stay afloat but reading this may just dim what light you have going on now.
Now there’s a morbid sort of title, eh? But it’s true. Everything that lives, eventually dies. I, for one, am not looking forward to a time when I will cease to exist as this word slinging, oxygen sucking, mobile miracle of science. In fact, the thought of the void quite often causes me an indescribable sensation. Not quite terror, but damn close.
I’ve read a few articles here and there that reference samurai who, as part of their mental training, were told to visualize their deaths repeatedly, as a means of desensitizing themselves against the fear. As they learned to no longer fear death, they became stronger warriors. More willing to run into battle than to retreat. Um, yeah. This article here includes that technique as a means of explaining one of the five recommended “secrets” to handling stressful situations. It made sense while I was reading it. Putting it into practice is a whole other subject.
It seems though that today’s society is hell-bent on self-destruction. Humans beheading other humans, shooting humans down in “cold” blood for whatever misguided justifications they can come up with. Women being raped, then killed because they were raped. Children being kidnapped, beaten, thrown from the windows of moving cars, forgotten (!!!) in sealed cars, whispers of World War III, bombing innocents to prove you’re superior and have the “right” to live in comfort at the expense of others. History repeating itself as Jim Crow might as well be writing the rules again. Was there ever peace between nations in the Middle East? And in the midst of it all, the Kardashians continue to trend and I keep getting told that Jesus is our only salvation…pardon my language, but What The FUCK?
I am losing sight of the reason I should continue to work, hope, pay bills, strive, exist. But then I circle back to that void, that being dead. I don’t want to die. At least not for another fifty-three plus years. But I’m feeling as if my chances of that are dwindling. So many other factors control whether we live or die, things completely outside our sphere of influence. I can exercise all I want, eat the right foods, get my full eight hours of sleep each night, but if I go to reach for my wallet during a traffic stop and the keyed up police officer sees a gun, I could very well find myself sucking wind through several bullet holes as the life drains from my healthy body.
The “truth” has finally sunk in, I think. I’m a walking target – I’m a woman, with dark skin, over the age of 35, which puts me at the top of several unsavory lists, makes me a target for hate in many forms and faces, and predisposes me to a bevy of life taking diseases. I’m going to be last on the acceptable candidates lists, first on the lay off lists, deemed too this for that, and not enough that for this. So, I’m back to why should I continue? Oh yeah, that damn void.
It’s really weird, this war that goes on in me almost daily now. I want to give up but I’m no quitter. I want to not care anymore, but there’s that curiosity burning to find out what happens next. I get consumed with fear, then that feeling of nothing washes over me and I find I’m more afraid of it than the possibility of being raped or shot.
And through it all, through the fear, sadness, in the dark…I write. I AM A WRITER. I find that odd, yet that’s what keeps me alive. Hmmmm.
Dana Ellington, MAPW 