Dark thoughts

I've been feeling rather existential-crisis-y lately.

A family friend recently passed away at the ripe old age of 92 or something, after a full and active life. He stilled lived at home with his wife (of 65 (plus?) years!) and he died suddenly after a heart attack, so there was no prolonged illness or gradual weakening and fading away. And then I learned this week that a professor I had in college passed away last year. I googled her and found out that she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and within a year she was gone.

And I know I'm probably being way too sensitive about this, but for some reason these deaths really got to me. (I wasn't even close to either of them!) Both died rather suddenly - the professor well before her time - and both left behind loving spouses. And that part really gets to me - leaving your spouse behind. Or being the one left behind. It really scares me! And the unbearable fact is, it will almost inevitably happen to me. Unless James and I die together in some accident (which is obviously not the ideal way to go), chances are one of us will go first. I can only hope that it will happen a long, long time from now, but that certainly isn't guaranteed. And I can't even begin to contemplate the sadness of being left behind by your true love - being all alone after you have known such happiness and such love. And being the first to die, knowing you're leaving your true love behind - that also seems too horribly sad to be possible.

But it's not just possible, it's inevitable. It is a fact: I will die. There's no escaping it. Everyone I know, everyone I have ever met, will someday be dead. And that freaks me out. I suppose it should be somewhat comforting that we all face it, you know? It's not just me, I'm not alone in this, it's one thing we all have in common. But it's not comforting. It's hard to imagine not existing. It's hard to imagine life going on without me.

This didn't use to bother me.

Two things have changed since I was younger and never gave the thought of death more than a sidelong, disbelieving glance (well, three, I have gotten older!): I lost my faith and I met James.

Maybe "lost" isn't the right term - I doubt that it's floating out there somewhere, waiting for me to find it again - I guess outgrew is more accurate. When I was little, I went to church and Sunday school every week because that's what you did and I didn't question it. I believed in God and Jesus and all of that because that's all I knew. When I was in high school, I went through a period of religious revival and awakening, became a bit thumpy and was "born again" - but it all felt hollow. The more I dove into the religion, the emptier it felt.

My mother believes the Bible is an all-or-nothing deal; you can't pick and choose what you want to follow, and that makes sense to me. But then there are certain things about the religion that I just cannot accept: that gay people are sinners, or abortion is wrong, or the earth was created in a week. And so if I can't accept some of it, how can I be a part of any of it? And then there was the growing feeling that the people in the church were putting on shows for each other - raising their hands as they sing and swaying around - it all felt performative, like they're just doing it to show everyone else how religious they are. And then there's the question of evolution - can you believe in that and the Bible at the same time? If you're a stict reader of the Bible, the answer is no. But evolution is a well-established scientific fact. There is overwhelming evidence in support of the earth being older than 6000 years, and that life evolved from microbes in some primordial sludge, and the thought of God putting these fossil records into rocks as he created the world seems so contrived, trying to bend scientific fact to fit into the religious mythology. And what evidence is there for Christianity? A book written by Bronze-age tribesmen that says it's true. And using the Bible for proof that the Bible is true is such ridiculously circular logic, but Christians like my mother fail to see that.

And so I couldn't really believe in Christianity anymore, but I clung to the idea of there being a God out there somewhere. Or some kind of vague force or power or whatever. And maybe there is, but it seems like chances are there isn't.

So if there isn't a god, then there isn't a heaven. And that's where the fear of death starts burbling up. If there isn't a heaven, if there is no afterlife, then when we're dead, we're dead. Our heart stops beating, our brain stops functioning, and we stop existing. (But how is that possible?! My mind rebels against this. My thoughts, my personality, my me-ness seems disconnected from my body somehow. If I lost an arm, I'd still be me. If my body dies, would I still be me?) The thought of not existing is just so damn depressing that I understand why people started believing in heaven in the first place. It's just so wonderful to think that after this life, we'll have another, eternal one, without any suffering, and we'll get to spend all of our time with all of our favorite people. That sounds so much more pleasant than decomposition.

And then there's James. Before I met him, I didn't have this completeness and this happiness that I have now. I can't help but sometimes be afraid that it will all be snatched from me at some point. It absolutely breaks my heart that at some point this love affair will have to come to an end. So I love him fiercely every day, I tell him how much he means to me and how lucky I feel to have him in my life, and I try to savor all this happiness we have now. Because what else can you do?

I don't feel this way all the time. I very rarely do, in fact; I mean, that'd be a really painful way to live everyday, dreading death. But sometimes, it just hits me, how real it is. How inevitable. And it just makes me sad.