As the years drift by and my body tells me it’s getting older by triggering pain receptors in various points and parts of my body, my thoughts are increasingly turning towards the inevitable end. We’re seeing peers die, a close friend of mine (Tony) has been dead a year and a half already. We lost two female members of our graduating class to cancer in the span of a day a couple of months back.

And of course watching our parents age is an incredibly eye opening and horrifying realization of what’s to come. It’s playing on my mind and recently more heavily and pervasively. To the point I look at my cats and almost tear up thinking of a horrible day (hopefully years away) that I’ll have to say goodbye to them for the last time.

So in this pensive state I’m considering the process of dying. I mean that starts as soon as we’re born but I’m now more concerned about the actual transition between living and dying and then what’s after that. And the thing I’m stuck by most is that I don’t think of believe that there’s anything after. Death is the end, the body dies and that’s it, there isn’t a heaven or hell, there isn’t anything at all. It’s horrifying that this life and all the lessons learned are gone.

But it’s been like this forever, we created religions to ease the scary thoughts of what happens after passing. I’ve started planning for my eventual passing so that it’s going to be easier on those left behind. I think that may help in my anxiety on the subject, hopefully.