The Pendulum Swings Towards Life

Please, before you read any further, understand that I do not mean this in any morbid sort of way...

I've always said- and meant- that it isn't death that I'm afraid of, but rather, by what means I'll die.  Obviously some forms of death are preferable to others.  I believe that what comes after will be peaceful and beautiful, and refreshing.  There is no fear.

Lately, though, I've begun to feel a shift.

Sometimes when I get that fluttering in my neck, or that hitch in my breathing, it occurs to me that one way or another, I will die; that's a fact.  And, for the first time, this troubles me.  It doesn't frighten me, just troubles me. 

This, I think, is a good thing.

I've spent so much of my life hurting and angry, depressed to the point of becoming suicidal.  Of course I had no attachment to life; I wanted to be rid of it.  This held true after I got sober, after I was diagnosed with and began treatment for bipolar disorder.  It didn't help, naturally, that I didn't take my medication properly, if at all, for the first couple of years after being diagnosed.  Shortly after that I was injured, lost my job, my father, a grandmother, an uncle and my dog.  To say I was depressed- despite taking my medication properly- would be an understatement.  I sank into isolation and the funkiest of funks, and I dwelled there for a couple of years, an emotional zombie.

Over the past couple of years, however, I've felt myself re-entering life in a way that I never had before.  The pain and the anger I've lived with have been reduced to echoes: there, but distant and fading.  Instead of wanting to throw away my life, or feeling apathetic about its course, I am now an active participant, if at times a little hesitant or timid.  I've opened myself up to others in ways I never could have before; I've been learning to let people in.

It is for these reasons that the notion of my death has become vaguely troubling, and why the fact that I'm troubled is a good thing.  It illustrates for me just how much I've reconnected with my life, and the people in it.

I still don't fear death, but I no longer welcome it.