Everything would have been here, even if I never came to life. The stars, the earth, the mountains, the clouds. They are real, independent of me experiencing them.

I am grateful to witness the earth’s beauty but I also feel cheated that I was put here as such a fleeting powerless thing that feels everything so deeply. Knowing what I am and understanding that I will need to leave, switch off even. It’s unbearable.

I’m inclined to ask the big why but when talking about existence, no one will have the one true answer for me and I guess I can be ok with that. But I have another why that I keep circling back to, or is it a how? It is probably both.
Why is everyone else not more occupied with reaching acceptance of “existing for just a little while as a human in this body in this world”? Why?
How can you just walk around and not be haunted by this terrifying situation you were dropped in? A giant universe, a human body on a planet, your whole identity, able to be in awe and in love, ultimately destined to disappear. No more I am, no more I want, no more I love.*

So here we all are, in our common truth of being on our way to death…

I often wonder…

Would you wake up in the morning knowing that you would eventually have to say goodbye to everyone and everything you’ll encounter that day, even to yourself?
Would you love if you knew that at any given point, it can all be taken away?
Would you have a child if you knew they would die?

I can feel that my answer is yes.
And I can look around me to see others, who apparently also decided to wake up today.
I can see the friends and families and people in love who are there for one another.
And, luckily, many children appear to be very much wanted by their tired parents.
Not everyone is happy, but people are here, doing the things and agreeing to live.

Anyway, back to my own answer.
I am feeling and I am saying yes. But I can only muster up this yes with tears in my eyes, with an anger sitting in my chest and fear creeping up my neck and my shoulders.
My legs still run up those mountains to be amazed and my arms still reach for connection with those I chose to love. So I’m doing it, but that doesn’t mean that all is well and, for sure, my pain is not gone. My mind keeps spinning out of control while I’m trying to hang on. Until, at the end of the day, all I can do is give up, surrender and fall down, hoping that at one point I will be able to get back up and say yes once again.
Yes to life and to love, but also holding some space for the tears, the anger and the fears.

_{*Perhaps, religion is part of the answer on both the why (people don’t seem so bothered) and how (people just walk around as if existence was the most normal thing imaginable), but for many people, including me, it is also not the answer.}