No idea if this helps, but I'm due to turn 39 in a couple months, and I never used to imagine hitting that age. On the one hand, yikes. But on the other hand? I feel better about my life than I used to back in my freewheeling 20s, before therapy, before transitioning, before forging a path.
Iāll be 49 next year. My mom died 18 months ago. A few weeks after she passed, something kind of obvious occurred to me. But I mean REALLY occurred to me. A simple truth, which Iād known already, hit me now but thoroughly and indescribably: life is rare. Like incomprehensibly rare. The odds I could be here seeing, breathing, thinking about what you wrote, respondingā are odds so incredibly minuscule they arenāt even worth trying to describe. And for some mysterious reason, or for no reason, you, me, and all the other weirdos on Earth received the gift of the single rarest, most precious thing in the universe. Itās a cliche, of course. It sounds trivial, obviousā until the day it doesnāt sound that way anymore. That is the day you stop fighting it. And you see it all differently. Itās simpler, easier, less trouble. You see the gift. You see life is not a chore or a hassle. You see how important it is, and how itās not important at all. It gets difficult, frustrating, and sad. And eventually, you have to give it away. But you got the chance to do it. And knowing that, somehow you feel better. A lot better, I promise.
Thank you for writing this and for helping me feel less alone in my feelings about how time passes now (Iām also turning 35 this year)
Fantastic writing!
No idea if this helps, but I'm due to turn 39 in a couple months, and I never used to imagine hitting that age. On the one hand, yikes. But on the other hand? I feel better about my life than I used to back in my freewheeling 20s, before therapy, before transitioning, before forging a path.
I love this essay. šš½
Iāll be 49 next year. My mom died 18 months ago. A few weeks after she passed, something kind of obvious occurred to me. But I mean REALLY occurred to me. A simple truth, which Iād known already, hit me now but thoroughly and indescribably: life is rare. Like incomprehensibly rare. The odds I could be here seeing, breathing, thinking about what you wrote, respondingā are odds so incredibly minuscule they arenāt even worth trying to describe. And for some mysterious reason, or for no reason, you, me, and all the other weirdos on Earth received the gift of the single rarest, most precious thing in the universe. Itās a cliche, of course. It sounds trivial, obviousā until the day it doesnāt sound that way anymore. That is the day you stop fighting it. And you see it all differently. Itās simpler, easier, less trouble. You see the gift. You see life is not a chore or a hassle. You see how important it is, and how itās not important at all. It gets difficult, frustrating, and sad. And eventually, you have to give it away. But you got the chance to do it. And knowing that, somehow you feel better. A lot better, I promise.