Yesterday, as the turkey cooked and my husband napped, my mom and my sister and I got to talking about getting older. We talked about our fears of getting sick, falling, not being independent, and we even batted around the “D” word. Fear of dying is universal, but what’s interesting is how different one person’s fear is from another’s. My sister spoke about the “how”. My mom mentioned seeing a billboard about a development with a planned opening of 2020 and thought with some surprise that she very well might not be here to see that. I realized, not surprisingly, that my greatest fear is being left out. I can’t conceive of a world I am not a part of, of milestones I will miss, of family that will be born who won’t know me. I remember years ago, there was a lot of buzz about the test of a super collider that could conceivably cause the earth to be sucked into a black hole. I loved this idea. If I have to die, I’m taking everyone I love with me. Nobody will have more fun than “Dead Me”, cause we will all be dead. I am well aware that this is a very self-skewed view of life and death. And I am not blind to the fact that if I live fully in today, try the things I’ve always wanted to try, not just talk about them from the streets of Someday, USA, I won’t be nearly as scared of a world in which I am a fond memory, an old photograph. And maybe, just, maybe, I will be able to look around at others’ lives without envy and longing because “Live Me” is having a ball.

Woman w/ Beehive Howls at the Moon
carynjune