The Wrinkle of Life is Furrowed Deeply

It is harsh as one transitions from one age to another. In our halcion youth, we often see others and feel sorrow for them because of their age and their infirmity. Yet, as it begins to happen to you, you rail and fight against having that pitiful expression show in the faces of those younger than yourself.

I am only 40, but I can sense those changes starting to happen to me, and it makes me feel sad and somehow a failure to have acquired these changes. A stiffness in my back I had not felt previously, a soreness in my arms, the beginnings of wrinkles under and around the eyes, a hairline that is slowly but now noticably shrinking. I can never return to what I was, nor will I ever feel that same sense of passion about life again, the feeling of life being forever without question. It has been a long while since I felt that "foreverness" of life with any regularity [perhaps 10-12 years], but on really wonderful days I would still feel and experience glimpses of that "foreverness" feeling that is so utterly freeing and beautiful. For the past year or so (once I turned 40) that feeling has seemed utterly unatainable. I know it would be pretty much a mental infirmity if I now, at my advanced age, believed in a "foreverness". Yet, to not even be able to acquire those fleeting glimpses makes me feel morose.

I fear death, I fear infirmity, I fear so much that I sometimes cannot sleep because of the overwhelmingness of it all. Yet other times I fear life, I fear being physical, and I fear so much that all I can do is sleep, in a vain hope to ignore the fears. With two young children, I fear not being there for them, I fear that I may miss protecting them at some crucial moment when my head is turned another direction, I fear that I may not teach them well so as to become smart, thinking people, I fear they may choose paths in life that may not help them or help society, and I fear I may instill in them my own fears.

It is hard to be afraid.

Konrad

The Loop Continues to Infinity

Mortality is a very frightening concept. I can recall when the philosophical construct of death and dying took hold of me and grabbed me tightly. I was six years old and even though I had known of the word death and its definition, the impact of its fortitude on life was not yet clear to my childish mind. I cannot even recall a trigger for this event, this bloom of awareness deep within both my soul and in my spirit. Perhaps there was no trigger. I cannot recall. Yet, I can still feel the utter terror and panic that gripped my body, I can relive the flavor of that fear, that realization. The notion that all that I knew and all that I love would end.

I locked myself into the upstairs bathroom in the old house and wailed and wailed, the giant, salty tears rolling into my open mouth. The gasping I felt as I tried to breath between the long stretches of wailing caused me to choke and cough. My cries were heard through the house and everyone came to the door to help, but I had locked it. The strength of the realization of death was so powerful that I am fairly certain I lost a sense of how to answer or communicate with my family, for all of them tried to talk with me and have me open that door and come out. Or at least tell them what was happening. But I could not. I could only cry and sob, and wail and dissolve myself within that emotion of fear and horror. There was no use, no purpose to anything. Death is all we have and all that we end up with.

Finally, after some stretch of time (I asked my father once, he said it was perhaps 3-4 minutes) that seemed eternal, my father used a screwdriver and a nail to unlock the bathroom door and my family all came in and surrounded me, fear in their eyes and questions on their lips. My mother scooped me in her arms, my father placed the palm of his hand under my chin and lifted my face towards his. They both questioned me about what was wrong, what had happened, was I hurt?

I could not answer them. I could not tell them what it was I had discovered. It would hurt them like it had hurt me. I could never reveal what it was I had discovered. And to keep it inside and to feel as if I were the gatekeeper of this knowledge made me feel more than overwhelmed and the sorrow felt as if it would never dissipate. I am not sure at what level I was thinking at the time, but I only knew that I could not tell them, my parents, my siblings, that I knew and understood the inevitable trek we are on to death. It is not that I presumed they were unaware of the impending demise themselves, but more that I did not want to hurt them further by having them know I too now carried that horrid and heavy yoke of knowledge with me. I did not want them to feel that added burden knowing that I knew.

It took roughly two hours for me to calm down and fall asleep for a nap. Although everyone kept asking me, I could not tell them what occurred. And I never did tell them or anyone what it was that happened that day. This is the first time I have revealed what it was that occurred. The sheer terror I felt, the despair I felt about all in life, because I had somehow put the details together in my mind and truly knew and understood the inevitability of death.. My religious faith has been a comfort for me over the years, yet that horrid grip of knowledge still is there, lurking in my mind, too available, yet properly available for me to explore at any moment. The various dances I take at times to avoid that mental loop are quite elaborate, and yet, the awareness of it being there never escapes me.

Konrad

To Endure a Pyramid Within a Spherical Mind

A factor of my life that I have become more aware of in a tangible sense as I grow older is how I do not often feel comfortable within my own skin, be it my physical body, my family, my community, my town. I am uncertain as to why I feel this way, but looking back on my fourty years of life, I can see it has been a thread that has been a part of me since conception.

How do I mean or how am I aware of this discomfort, one may ask. It first became obvious to me only in brief flashes or in short fits and spurts during all sorts of different daily activities. For many years these flashes or spurts were disjointed and had no cohesive sense to them. The interconnectedness of their effect only became apparent en masse. The flashes or fits and spurts were hallmarked by an amazing seensation of "unawareness", a loss of input to the mind about where I was at, what I was doing, analysis of how I was performing. Another way to state is that I was "in the moment" so to speak. In the brief seconds and occasional minutes I felt this "in the moment" sensation, I was not cognizant of its significance, and only through the happenstance event of pieces several of these moments together did I realize that I am perhaps abnormally aware of my physical and emotional self in regards to the surroundings. This awareness consumes vast stores of physical and emotional energy and now that I sense its costs, I wish to either find beneifts to the method of living or adjust my methods of living accordingly.

Konrad