My Greatest Fear
I used to fear death… I feared it more than anything up until I realized recently that my soul had already experienced death a few hundred times in the form of my ego, parts of my personality and dreams being lost to the realities of life over the years.
Death wears many masks, it cloaks itself under the guise of promise. There is no way to predict the death of anything… It is merely seeing the signals and planning for the downfall.
I anticipated the death of my parents marriage for years before it happened. I knew from around the age of six or seven that divorce was an inevitability. It was this presence in my chest that I felt. A black hole telling me that the end of whatever life was to me then, was near.
The night I had this realization the leather on the couch was cold and it was too late for a 7 year old to be awake but I have always been a night owl. My parents had been at a party of some sorts when they got back; we were in Canada for my Grandfather’s wedding in 2007. I do not remember what the details of the argument were but I felt that ache in my chest when I heard how my parents yelled at each other. The end of their marriage was near; This death only a slow and lingering one rather than an immediate release.
A few years passed before I got this confirmation.
It was a Wednesday night this death was confirmed and the time of death was called. I can vividly recall seeing my Mom’s face at the stair steps (she had been crying heavily), and knowing that something soul crushing was about to be said. All I could see on her face was defeat… I felt an ache in my heart; worrying that a family member had died, I hoped for it to be my parents marriage that was dead instead.
It was.
That death, in hindsight, was one of the easier ones to overcome. I never really had the highest of expectations for the marriage that I saw growing up. I saw examples of love on TV and in the movies, whilst seeing none of them at home. I spent my childhood looking on with envy at the love I saw others felt.
Throughout my life, I have felt an ache in my chest when I felt an inevitability. I discovered early on that there is a gut feeling inside that can sense when the end is near.
As I said before, death used to terrify me.
In some ways, it still does. When the sinking chest in my heart appears, I worry for what is to come… How much more ache can my heart handle? However, I realized recently that it is not death itself that I fear… As I have experienced the death of my hockey career, my parents marriage, and the self I once knew who died the day I was sexually assaulted the first time. I am still standing despite those deaths.
In 2020, I finally uncovered that what I fear is not death itself, it is nothing. I fear nothing. I fear that when I die, that is it. Diving deeper into these feelings throughout the year, I realized that it is not even nothing that I fear. I have felt nothing many times, due to my depression, PTSD, and dissociations.
I realize that what I fear is not getting the chance to experience everything for the good. I fear not getting to experience the rebirth that comes after death. If I were to die tomorrow, I only ache for the missed possibilities. All of the places I never got to see, the feelings I never got to experience, and the welcome deaths of my ego, expectations, and envy.
When I think of my death tomorrow, I feel nothing. For it is an inevitability. When I think of my death, I wonder what legacy will carry on. Is it the one of a girl who died a few hundred times, wasting her highest and truest potential… or will it be one of triumph, having changed the world after realizing that she was bulletproof and unstoppable?
My gut tells me it is the latter.
While the old me has died a million times, the only thing left now is a clean slate to build a new, stronger foundation. The only way left to go, is up. My ego has died and now I am reborn, I feel nothing but now I feel everything. I fear nothing and I fear everything. I am ready for my rebirth. Tabula rasa.
