This blog never intended to be about my personal state of mind or mental health. However, I just figured out why I had been in a funk (slump) for a couple of years. It seemed logical to share my own insights to see if others were experiencing my process similarly and that it was not atypical for people on life's journey ,as the light at the end of the tunnel is the oblivion of being life's end.. My funk was not a clinical depression and no one close to me noticed or knew I was in a funk. I did my job, but fell behind on lots of things I should have been doing. doing lots of things that didn't really need to be done by me, and putting off many other chores , like filling out a health proxy and all those other legal end-of-life things.
I can only describe this phase somewhat 'end to beginning' and in a context retrospectively visible to me long after I was caught up in its action-sapping fingers. As insight gradually seeped into my consciousness, it became apparent the initial triggers were the death of three of my very good friends, about my age, in a close cluster of time. Lastly, my age having turned to a decade too often stereotyped in our society as beyond youth into near senility. As of this writing, my health is excellent, I feel younger than most with my years of life, and I'm told I neither think like most my age nor behave like them...whatever one can interpret from that.
Realization struck that all three of my friends had serious illnesses for some time but had survived long enough that imminent death came as a surprise about all three. Those three had backed off life to a remarkable extent while I had continued living my life much as I had the previous decade.
As I counted the probable years left to me in life, my mind began a list of priorities. I began to cut back on some of the things I wanted to finish and rethought those that I felt I must finish. My feelings were an irritation at all the myriad tasks of survival that took up so much of the day. Unwanted phone intrusions which had not normally bothered me now did. I became impatient with people whom I considered as wasters of my time, though many were lovely human beings; I determined to whom I would grant the sharing of what was left to me and speak only to those with whom I wish the contact. I cherished the friends and relatives whom I love and regretted that their lives were so busy, as mine had been a few decades earlier, allowing little time for sharing their lives with me. All the things I still wanted to learn more about piled up for the valuable answers to many of my questions. My house is full of books and I know many of them will be unread , but I will never know it..
Recognizing with what my psyche was struggling, since I have no fear of death, my quest is to prioritize the relatively few years remaining so that, while I am alive, I can feel I am making the most of them just as I bargain shopped for years to feel I was maximizing the use of my finite amount of money. If I were immortal I know I would never be bored as there is always something to learn, do, experience, and feelings to be felt, images to store in my brain, and relationships to make me feel worthwhile to others. The comfort I finally achieved was the realization that as much as there may be panic felt at how much I can cram into those remaining years, at whatever point it is over, nothing will matter. I will know nothing of what was undone, what memories of myself I left for others, whatever happened to my treasured belongings, and will not experience Armageddon or the future generations of my offspring..
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