mortality

life is so special partly because of its fleetingness. Would life matter so much if it went on forever? Would the people in it matter so much if we knew we had eternity to ignore, fight and fix things?

I've become overly aware of these things, overly aware of my own mortality lately. For as long as I can remember I've been suicidal, we're talking since I was a small child. My biggest fear used to be that there was life after death, I'd pray that my death was an end, that everything was finally over. Don't get me wrong, I still don't hope or believe in an afterlife, but now I take the stance of I'll handle the next step if there is one when it comes. But strangely now I haven't been suicidal in a couple of months. Life isn't really better than it was, but suicide has been removed as an option. A couple of months ago, for the first time a friend made me feel, not logically, but on a deep emotional level the impact my suicide would have on those I care about. I have known logically for awhile that some people like me, and that those people would be sad/upset if I died especially by my own hands, but I never really knew it all the way to my core. I still struggle with the idea that I am worthy of being loved, that people out there could not only want me around, but genuinely care about me. I still really struggle with this. But as of late, I've begun to believe that people can actually care for me for who I really am. and one of these people expressed so completely and spontaniously the impact my death would have not to my logical brain but to my emotional soul. Suicide is no longer an option.

But this leaves me in a strange quandry. Deciding it is no longer up to me as to when I call it quits, means I know have to start dealing with life itself instead of merely running from it or not caring cuz it doesn't matter because soon I'll die and won't have to live with the realities of the descions I've made. I've been living most of my life as if it weren't real, as if it were a game that I could end at any moment. This means I haven't taken the care to lead my life in a direction that makes it worth living. Sigh.

So now, not being suicidal and having to deal with life as it comes, I am faced with the reality of my own mortality. Of not being dead, but the actual act of dying, particularly when I don't want to. I now feel the need to face the health issues I've been running from, hoping to make the rest of my life more liveable. (I can't avoid the irony of spending my whole life wanting to die, and the moment I don't want to die, the possibility of actually dying) I am afraid.

I'm not so sure what I'm afraid of percisely. It's not the being dead part. Or even really the pain I'm sure will come before that. It's not the leaving people, although that does suck. I think it's having wasted my life. I have always felt like a damned, sub-human being destined for misery and pain, whose only chance of any redemption was to leave the world a little better off than it was before I existed, not because I thought it'd save my soul, because I think I'm damned no matter what I do, but because then at least I could bring some joy or peace to the world, however minutely because it's the right thing to do no matter wheither it helps you. I feel as if we have the choice to be mean or kind, there's enough pain in the world why choose to add more if you don't have to. There will always be pain, we no matter what we do, we will eventually hurt those we care about, but the least we can do is to not do it on purpose. But I worry that the pain I've caused out numbers the good I've done. I worry that I have not made a positive difference. And that I don't have the time to fix that.