Anyway…
Life will be the death of me
Most of us have moments when we realize we’re going to die someday. It’s a thought we can only hold for a moment before the thought of re-embracing eternity becomes too overwhelming. We cannot fathom no longer being ourselves. There’s actually a fair bit of research about how we simultaneously hold knowledge of our mortality and suppress that knowledge as well. We all know that everyone dies. It’s an objective fact.
We even assign an appropriate sequence to death: the elderly, then everyone else. But life tilts its head at our little chart and says, “You’re adorable. Anyway….”
Children die. Young people die. Some people will lose multiple family members at the same time. Some people will die just at the moment they have life by the tail. That capriciousness feels unfair (spoiler: it is). We like fairness because it creates meaning and order. Order is safety.
It’s quite another matter, however, to understand that I’m going to die. Death happens over there, to that person. Not to me. Babe, it happens over here, too.
Even though my life was never remotely in danger when I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, it smooshed my face up to the glass behind which my mortality sits. In case of mortality, break glass.
It doesn’t help that DEATH is portrayed as an emo goth dude with a scythe. He curls a bony finger at us, demanding we come hither. Demands. That’s the thing about death. It’s kind of the boss of us in the end. We can no more avoid death than we can remain in the womb. We labour our way in, and we labour our way out.
The one thing Death isn’t in charge of is now. Breast cancer slapped me with the truth that I will die. Some day. Life is a coupon with the ‘valid until’ date blurred out.
It’s easy to feel paralyzed by the existential questions: when, how, what happens after? I prefer to live in the anyway. The ultimate change of subject strategy.
I’m going to die one day. Ok. Anyway…I’m going back to Italy.
I’m going to die one day. Ok. Anyway…I’m going to finish my novel.
I’m going to die one day. Ok. Anyway…I’m going to live all the days before that day.
Yeah, Death is kind of a toxic boss. A killjoy. But it only gets one day. One. That’s it. The rest of my days, Death is not the boss of me.
Anyway….