(no subject)

[serene]

Sometimes it sinks in that I'm gonna die some day, perhaps today, and it kinda freaks me out.

All the more reason to live a life I love, but still. It chills me sometimes.

Comments

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

I just think of all the advertising I'll miss out on when I'm dead and it makes the whole prospect seem comforting.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yeah.

(Seriously, though, I have devices for getting over myself about this. Chief among them is to remind myself that freaking out about dying won't stop it from happening. Still, sometimes it's just a profound freak-out. Such a sense of powerlessness and, um... unfairness? No, not that, but some sort of three-year-old stomping her foot and saying "But I don't WANNA!!")

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

serene

when it is time for death it will such for those who love you, but ... it'll be time.

the day will come. but so will sunsent.


and sunrise.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Heh. Me, I wonder many days, "Is today The Bus Day?" (The day I get hit by a bus.)

Use your devices, P.R.N.

[7patches.livejournal.com]

[as needed].
With the loss of people close to your family, and the approaching holidays, be aware that your perspective is somewhat skewed.
In my first 5 years with my husband, we lost 5 close relatives. Every morning I say to him, or at least to myself "I love you every day".

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Is it the idea of dying yourself or others' dying that bothers you?

The idea of dying myself doesn't bother me so long as it does not hurt, but I am OVER this other-people-dying bit.

[kshandra]

I think maybe we all do it, to one extent or another. I know I do.

*hugs*

[lcohen]

i can't say that it freaks me out. in a way, it is comforting to me to know that there is no one whose life would collapse around my absence from it. (i don't mean that no one would miss me; i know that people would. but i am not really part of the day to day structure of anyone's life.)

[rosefox]

Every time I think about that, I think, "Am I ready?" And I am. That doesn't mean that I don't want other things more; there's a great deal I'd love to do. But I feel... this is complicated, but I feel like I've done enough, because I know what a lot of my early mistakes were (I speak primarily in the moral/ethical sense) and I've spent a lot of time correcting them towards my sense of "right" behavior and now feel that the balance has tipped towards the positive. And what more could I ask from my life, in a broad sense, but that I've spent more of it behaving well, even when it was difficult, than behaving badly? At that point, I am at heart satisfied. The rest is gravy, icing, a blessing, and I treat it as such. My work is done; the rest of my life is for play, and when it's time to put my toys away and go home I will do it gladly.

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

huh. I really don' think I have much of a fear or freak out about death. I have some trepidation about getting there since most of the ways I can think of to die involve some to a signifigant amount of physical pain. But after that part, the only thing really against it is that it's so mundane. I mean everybody does it, you can't be unique at all by dying.

Anyway, it'll either be nothing, the deepest sleep you ever had (in which case there's nothing to worry about) or it'll be quite the adventure. And I'm a big fan of both. heh.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

I believe that there is an existence after death. I want to know what that is.

I used to be a hospice worker. I probably will be again, but I needed a break. But I have a different way of relating to death than most people I know.

Meemo Bryers was a lovely 86 yr old lady who was dying of cancer. She used to have "visits" with this relative or that. I remember one time, she was napping in her easy chair, and she woke with a start. "Oh, my," she said, and waving at the, to me, empty air, told me that her dear cousin Em had come for a visit (aside, she whispered "I'm so excited! I haven't seen Em since she died! She was 19. I was so sad), and would I go get some tea. She said that she knew that Em couldn't drink the tea, but bring her some for politeness sake, won't you dear?

Meemo died a few weeks later. I can still see her sipping tea with Em.

[firecat]

It doesn't freak me out except in the sense that I can't imagine it. A world without a me to experience it - it doesn't compute. And yet of course there was a world without a me to experience it before I was born, and that doesn't freak me out.

If I believed in reincarnation or life after death then this wouldn't be an issue. But I don't believe. I just think it would be nice. On the other hand, it could be horrid.

[leback.livejournal.com]

It freaks me out, too. I definitely don't wanna--and the more I manage to love life, the more I mind. Occasionally it helps to point out to myself that this is not rational: if having such a happy life, instead of making me feel good, is making me feel freaked out about the possibility of losing it, I'm doing something wrong. But, well, sometimes I'm not rational. :-)

My main coping strategy seems to be an ongoing internal getting-my-affairs-in-order sort of thing: keep in mind that every opportunity I get for something that matters (telling someone I love them, doing something nice for someone, noticing my enjoyment of a patch of sunlight) might be the last one I get, and using it as well as I can. It's hard for me to stay that conscious of such things all the time, but to the extent that I manage, I'm comforted knowing at least the end won't sneak up on me... Kind of weirdly, I think this has become my version of spirituality.

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

*hugs*