What happens next

For years, I have gone through bouts of panic, fierce and sickening panic about death.  Last night was no different.  Friday and Saturday nights were silly, full of friends, and joyful banter.  In fact, the entire week was extremely enjoyable.  I even fit in some jogging that I've been missing as of lately.  So there was no melancholy state of mind as I went to bed - no possible warning sign, but then as I laid there a string of thoughts exploded creating a very physical and panicky reaction.

And this happens.

I sat there remembering and agonizing over the fact that I will die one day, maybe soon, maybe not.  Probably sooner than I want if I don't shape my physical well-being into something better than it has become in the past three years, mostly the last.  For a moment I felt a sense of relief, like I could add days to my life if I did X, Y, and Z.  The next cogitation that when I do die, it's just all over.  In the ground, the world keeps going, a diminutive part of it mourning for an even tinier amount of time.  I just don't exist.  

Thoughts about what I want my life to be are stronger every day, the fear of what I don't want it to be sometimes more robust, but I'm haunted by the vision that one moment I will be going along in my life and the next moment will suddenly be blank, nonexistent.  

For me, there really just isn't any notion of after life.  There is nothing.  I don't understand how this doesn't haunt more people?  Instead of it motivating me to live life to its fullest, like it used to, it paralyzes me and reinforces nonaction.

It doesn't help that I'm sitting here in Baltimore, counting down the days until I move back to Minnesota.  I don't necessarily know that Minnesota will be this great and right thing, because there is no job there (yet), my own place (yet), but there is a community of people that I assume will make existence richer.  What I don't get is how did I get so far from the words I once wrote a professor in undergrad that proudly stated: the best thing man can do is learn how to be alone and not lonely?  There is no guarantee that the community I think is in Minnesota will come into fruition with my life.  

 

If it does, than will I only be biding my time, letting my deeper, darker fears go unnoticed because I'm allowing myself to fill my mind with different thoughts instead of working this all out?  Is that just what life is, distraction?  Being more alone here this year has opened the door to lots of thoughts that I didn't have time to think about.  In one sense, I'm happy for that discomfort.  The parts of life that I do find joyful feel like a cover-up, because I'm acutely aware of the end.

I want to find some kind of genuine relief for this fear, to be content with the obvious.  But I don't want to find God.

New Beginnings, Commonly Done

It's time to leave Baltimore.  I've been teaching here for three years now, and while I almost always love it, the love affair of traveling across the country, alone, making it work, and digging my heals into a new territory has faded.  I'm left restless in my life outside of work.  A painful contradiction, because my life has been all about teaching, happily.  Well, my personal life has flourished in the last three years and emptied in the past year.  I think this is a good thing, even though it often feels like a bad thing; teaching is no longer enough.  

It's time to head back to Minnesota where more awaits.  

I've enjoyed blogging in the past, dearly, but have found myself saying nothing spectacular and thought it best to stop.  Well, now I just want to reflect on where I've been and where I want to go.  So much is about to change for me that it might be nice to put it all out there for myself to analyze later, for friends and any potential readers to comment on, and just to get back to public expression.  I want to feel a little bit like the writer I once was.  

Starting a new blog, something I've done once or twice.  It's how it works, you know, these blogs.