Death by Numbers

I keep thinking to myself, “How did this blog become so morose? All this talk about death. Surely it’s not doing anyone any good.”

Well, dear reader, that’s probably true of your good self, or perhaps other passers-by who read on, then look away before they succumb to the inevitable pull of some of my most melancholic moments.

But I can’t help it. And I don’t fight it. Mostly, if not entirely, this, for me, is one sure way of processing the melancholia out of my system. As the title of this blog continues to tease, this is my way of being kind to myself. Writing does it for me, and so I’d be an idiot to avoid it, regardless of the reflective paths it takes me – depressing or otherwise.

These types of posts are also my way of outstretching my middle finger in faux (and certainly not too convincing) defiance of what my life journey can sometimes throw at me.

Consider the following: 70, 48, 27, 90. Can you see the pattern?

These are the ages of the people whose funerals I’ve had to attend in the past 11 months. If that isn’t a fickle set of numbers, then I don’t know what is. And the more I think about this seemingly random sequence, the more I feel the need to write. Like someone with a nervous tic – a condition that manifests itself during periods of high anxiety, where the only way through it is to either talk incessantly (at accelerating speeds and increasing volume), or to make one lame joke after another, hoping one of them might just break the tension.

And so here I am, with nothing to say but with a deep and compelling urge to say it – to write my way to a place of greater peace and centredness. It is a way of maintaining momentum, my way to keep moving, and thereby avoid the stillness inherent in death  – physical or otherwise. I write to stay alive – parts of me at least, if not all of me. And, by extension, I am also hedging my bets on the possibility that it’s harder to hit a moving target.

Thanks for keeping up. I appreciate the company.