Life in Slo Mo

 Each day feels like I'm living in a slo mo world. I'm existing instead of living. I keep thinking about death and how everybody dies one day. Hopefully I'm not going anywhere for quite a while. Nevertheless, I don't know what happens after. I'm not convinced anything does. Which is why I try to live as much as I can while I am alive. 

I've seen death up close and personal more times in my life than I could possibly count. Death is fairly common when you work with the elderly. But I don't know those people. I only took care of them at the end of their life and usually they had some form of dementia so I didn't know the real person at all. In my life nobody has died in quite a long time. My mother in law but that was maybe 6 years ago and I had a lot going on at that time. Before that my grandfather in 1985. I brought all my children to meet him and I always kept him updated on things. I miss visiting him at the cemetery because I had taken care of so many other people that were buried there also. I would wander around the cemetery visiting them all. From Alice and Bernard Arnold wayyy in the back to Edythe Schell and Flossie Lewis and her husband whom I can't name right now,  in the front part of the cemetery. I miss that place honestly. I don't know if I'll ever get back home. 

But why has this death bothered me so much? Because it was unexpected and he was young. He shouldn't have died. It was too soon. And that makes me realize that time could be up for any of us when we don't even know it. Maybe I could get hit by a truck tomorrow and my time will be up. Or if something were to happen to one of my kids before I die I would lose my shit. I don't know how I could go on. In American culture we aren't comfortable with death. I mean, we prolong life to an unsettling degree, beyond the point when you have any quality of life it seems. 

Meanwhile it seems every guy from my past is sending me messages and I don't even care one bit. They bore me. Every one of them. For like 2 whole minutes I can attempt a conversation before I don't care anymore. They aren't who I want to talk to. I'd like to go back in time and say all the things I didn't get a chance to. All the things I should have said. The lesson I take from this is always take advantage of the opportunity to say what you want to say. There may not be another time. 

Only time will make me feel better about this. Am I being overdramatic? I don't think so. It's not the last time I will have to deal with death in my life. My Mamaw is 96 and my parents are getting older so I know their time will come. I think I understand why people remain religious. To convince themselves that there is an afterlife and they will see those people again. I just wish I knew what really happens. Do we really cease to exist? That's my theory. But I want to imagine that people's soul continues on in some form. I want to imagine that. But I'm not sure I can convince myself of that. 

I'm just going to try my best to live each day well. Because it's the only life I have.