I watched a man shake, seize, scream his way to a damn painful death. How does a 55 year old guy without any medical problems just have a massive heart attack....all of a sudden....out of the fucking blue. And if our mortality is assigned to us before we even take our first breath...then what is the use of trying to shock him back to life or restrain him down as he is begging to leave. Perhaps humanity's inherent optimism is to blame. We are all born far too idealistic for our own goods.
I actually really miss that quality about childhood...indulging in those idealistic views. Giving into the naive assumption that my parent's love was unconditional. Giving into the fantasy that perhaps some things in life are truly free. And I miss the irrational comforts - like knowing that every Wednesday after school, rain or shine - my dad would take me out for ice cream. It was our time together and nobody could take it from us. I yearn for the comfort I would feel simply from jumping into my parents' bed and begging them to tell me the same bedtime story I had heard a million times before. I would fall asleep feeling like "it" would all be okay no matter what (not actually knowing what "it" was.)
Then something strange happens to us as we age...the trite affairs of life combined with the inevitable heartbreaks we are bound to experience...begin to wear us down...we lose what made us blissfully pure...we become ugly inside...we become "human". What we once perceived as "optimism and hope" starts feeling like "naivety and ignorance." There is something awfully terrible about growing up. It's fucking isolating. It's lonely.
And yet, there are days when I am reminded of how unpredictable life can be - and that perhaps if I stopped being so ungrateful, I could realize how precious it is. We are guaranteed not even our next breath of air. Is that not fucking mind-blowing. Does that not make every moment of our lives so incredibly valuable? Regardless of whether you live to be 25 or 85....life is truly short. So why, then, would I spend even a minute focusing on the nonsense that ruins me.
I hate that watching a dying man be electrically shocked is what shocked my own self-awareness. I hate that watching a man take his last few breaths is what triggered me to appreciate my next few breaths. I hate that it takes such sadness to awaken my soul..
As I walked away from the crowd of people who had just tried yet failed to revive the guy...I felt so damn guilty. He had died and I had stood there watching him...I didn't ask to be a part of his last minutes on this Earth. I didn't want to take up space in a room filled with strangers. His own family should have been in that room. His own children should've been there. Not only did I fail to help him physically, but I failed to provide any comfort. He was crying, shaking, screaming for help. And none of us could help him.
I desperately wanted to know what it was he was crying about the most. Was he longing for his family who he never got a chance to say goodbye to? Was he crying about past regrets - of not doing all that he could? Regrets about the mistakes he had made and the people he had hurt? Was he crying out of fear of the unknown....the afterlife?
Fuck all this death talk has made me violently sad.
Labor day Lemons .... fuck lemonade.
until next time,
ElyVas
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