When Fear Becomes the Air You Breathe While Wrestling with the Weight of Mortality

Me: “I thought I was supposed to be happy?! I have a loving husband, a house to rest and cook in, I never go without food, water, basic necessities to live…so many good things are happening beside all that, my life has gotten so much better-- I am supposed to be happy!”

Me: “you are…. Its just drowning in fear”

There is a peculiar cruelty in the way fear seeps into the soul how it seeps like ink into water, swirling, staining, until the whole of you is tinged with its presence. It does not announce itself with fanfare, nor does it strike like a sudden storm. No, it moves with the patience of roots burrowing into the earth, quiet but relentless, spreading until it is indistinguishable from the foundation of who you are.

And this fear, this particular terror that has taken residence in my mind, is not a fleeting worry or a momentary disturbance. It is something far more insidious. It is a shadow that clings to the edges of my consciousness, a slow poison dissolving the purity of simple existence.

Do you ever find yourself tangled in thoughts of death? Not merely the broad, inescapable truth of it, but the intimate details… the precise moment when the thread will be cut, for yourself or others you love? The setting in which the final breath will leave your lips… the cause that will demolish the fragile monument of your existence? I do. I find myself ensnared in its grip, as if by turning it over and over in my mind, I might strip it of its power, as if understanding the shape of the monster might make it less terrifying.

But there is no understanding, only an illusion of control. My mind lies to me, tells me that if I think about it enough, I can prepare. As if knowledge could be a shield. As if obsessing over the inevitable could somehow delay its arrival. A foolish superstition born not of logic, but of desperation… an unspoken prayer to a force that does not bargain.

I did not always live like this. Once, I moved through life with a lightness I can barely remember now. There was a time when the weight of existence did not press down upon me, when I did not see my own mortality in every reflection… in every closed door, every second passing on the face of the clock in our living room, every droplet of rain on our car window, every hug, in every sunset that sank too quickly beneath the horizon. But now, the awareness is unrelenting.

The knowledge of death has carved itself into my bones, a silent undercurrent in everything I do. It is there in the simple act of waking up, a flicker of unease beneath the first breath of morning. It lingers in the pause between heartbeats, in the quiet moments when my mind is left unguarded. Even joy is not immune to it… happiness tainted by the certainty that it, too, will one day cease.

I wonder if this is how it will always be. Will I spend my life dissecting the end of it, forever at war with the unknown? Will I always feel this weight upon my chest, this ever-present reminder that nothing lasts? I long for the days when I could exist without this constant battle between awareness and peace, when the thought of impermanence did not send me spiraling. But I cannot remember what that felt like.

Fear has a way of rewriting the past, turning even the happiest memories into something fragile, something touched by loss. I try to remember the feeling of being unburdened, but it slips through my fingers like mist. Was I ever truly free of this fear, or has it always been there, lurking beneath the surface, waiting for a moment of weakness to rise?

The worst part is the way it isolates. Because how do you explain this fear to someone who does not feel it? How do you put into words the quiet horror of realizing that every moment is leading toward an end you cannot escape? It is not enough to say I am afraid. It is not enough to admit that the thought of death grips me so tightly that I can barely breathe.

I want to be understood, but more than that, I want to be free. I want to exist without this fear clawing at my mind, without the constant undercurrent of dread pulling me under. But how does one escape a prison that is built from their own thoughts? How do you break free when the chains are forged from the very elements of your mind?

Some nights, I wonder if there is peace in surrender. If, perhaps, the only way to quiet the fear is to accept it… to let it wash over me without resistance, to acknowledge its presence without allowing it to consume me. But surrender feels like a kind of death in itself, a relinquishing of control that I am not yet ready to give.

So instead, I fight. I wrestle with the thoughts, try to carve out moments of stillness amid the chaos. I remind myself that I am alive now, that I exist in this moment, that there is beauty in the fleeting nature of it all. But even as I do, the fear lingers.

Perhaps it always will. Perhaps this is the price of awareness… the knowledge that everything is temporary, that every heartbeat is a step closer to an end we cannot predict or prevent. But even if that is true, I refuse to let it take everything from me.

Because life is not just the fear of death. Life is the space in between, the moments of light that exist despite the shadow. And maybe, just maybe, if I learn to hold onto those moments, I can find a way to live… not in fear of the end, but in awe of the time I have left.

With great love, and hope that you'll cherish every moment,

-Aubs

(03-04-25)