Kinda dying helped me live

I've been re-experiencing memories lately. One comes up a lot.

It was August 2022, and I was in hell. I've described that sensation a lot, so I will refer the reader to past posts on this gemlog.

One of the central goals in my faith practice is to live so that you can die in a state of durable happiness. Around this time, I started to think about how bad my life condition was, and how far away I was from this goal. Instead of dying happy, I was living in constant suffering.

I was out for a walk (more like a shuffle, back then.) I started thinking about how I'd feel if my life ended then and there.

I ended up talking to someone about it that night. I'll leave out the personal details, as it was very emotional and difficult on that other person. But I came to realize that I was very happy with how my life had gone. I loved all the relationships I'd had, the work I'd done, and the person I'd become. I wasn't happy with how it was ending, but that's not usually something we get to choose. I talked about this for what felt like hours; reliving all the notable things, the events and people that shaped my life to that point. I was telling my life's story to myself.

This sounds idyllic, but the practicalities were pretty ugly. For one thing, once I felt this sense of closure, I was still there, alive, needing to live out each day. The natural thing for me to do upon feeling this sense of acceptance was to start planning my exit.

I cleaned up all my legals. I left practical instructions for what to do if I passed. I had to be careful about getting documents witnessed, because I knew that people would (rightfully) see that as a warning sign. I figured I could leave that part for later, since I genuinely believed that I wasn't going to be able to end my own life, for various reasons.

After that, it genuinely felt as if I was starting a new life. I was starting in a very poor spot, and I felt reasonably sure that it was going to be an ugly ride, but I wasn't trying to fix things anymore. This was just life now; I was going to try to live it one iota at a time.

Things feel much lighter these days. I think I enjoy my life more than I ever have. When people ask me what I want to do in the future, I kind of don't have an answer for them. There are certainly things I want to do; there are far fewer things I feel forced to do. But if none of them happened, I would be more than satisfied with that.

Whenever I explore where this feeling comes from, the memory I just described comes up. I guess you could call it a turning point. I can't bring myself to be grateful for it, because it was awful. But I like where I am now. I never expected it.

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