Biggest Fear

My Biggest Fear

My biggest fear is Death. I say fear only for lack of a better word. Death does make me feel sick to the pit of my stomach if I put too much thought into the concept, and it sends shivers down my spine and makes me tremble. But it isn’t a true fear, or maybe it is and my concept of fear is just warped by my reaction to spiders – my one (obvious) phobia. 

When I am startled by the presence of a spider, say someone points one of the nasty little buggers out to me, I pelt out of the room squawking like a bird that has just had its feathers ripped out and either hide behind a wall or scramble on to higher ground (i.e. the stairs, the sofa or my bed). I prefer the higher ground approach as most spiders dash under things and not up things, and it gives me a better scope of the area as well putting me in a better position to leap out of the way (and over the spider) if need be.

My reaction to Death is a lot less obvious. I guess that is because Death is a lot less obvious. You only ever truly face Death once and no one ever wins that battle, if you have a "near-death experience" then Death wasn’t truly after you. Death always wins. But when the concept of death crops up in conversation or pushes itself to the front of my mind I find myself suddenly feeling sick and the instinct to run away definitely pokes out its head. 

I see myself as a spiritual person, not religious – I am more agnostic when it comes to religion – but definitely spiritual. I tell myself I believe in souls, spirits and mythology but I think the honest truth is I believe that the universe is magnificently huge and humans are not special enough to have a higher power looking out for us or some greater meaning. When we die, I fear that is it. We are nothing. See nothing, feel nothing, taste nothing, think nothing – are literally gone. Consciousness only exists when tied to a living body. The worst thing is, I feel this more now than ever. Now that I have known someone close to me die.

If there was more to life, or rather more to death, then I would surely feel something? Anything… but in all honesty I feel nothing. Why would someone my age, who had barely lived their life, who had friends and family that loved her, was smart and had a good personality, who wasn’t some huge risk taker or impulsive personality just suddenly get some mysterious illness and die. What God would do that, what higher meaning is there that makes this ok? I wish I could convince myself that her soul had outlived that body and she had moved on but it just feels wrong. All of my beliefs feel wrong, my reasons for the way I live my life seem invalid and my inner thoughts seem tainted. 

I think experiencing death so close to home has made the last parts of my mind that clung on to hope let go, or at least their grip has slackened. I am only nineteen but I fear I am a very pessimistic person, with little faith in humanity and little trust in the ideas that "everything happens for a reason" and "things will work themselves out in the end". Why should everything sort itself out? Why is their more fish in the sea? What makes it impossible for me to die without finding love? Why will I always land on my feet? These things aren't set in stone, they don't magically sort themselves out - why am I so special that no matter what happens, everything will be okay?  


I wish I was an optimist. I wish I had it in me to think 'everything will sort itself out' but the slightest chance that these thoughts could survive even at the back of my mind seems to have been diminished with the death of my housemate. I feel it is an injustice to her memory to think like that, because why should it all work out for me when it didn't for her? This is one of my darkest moments. A huge chunk of me wants to just give up and let life pass me by, a smaller chunk is kicking me up the backside telling me not to waste what little time I have left - for it could only be a day. I am feeling myself slip over the edge of not caring. What does it matter? My life has had many misfortunes in it up until this point, is it really heading for some huge turn around? But I do have some hope that this is just the dramatic part of my mind that conjures up characters and stories and crazy ideas, and it is just wounded from the loss of a good friend, and is taking it out on my rational mind - blurring the edges. 


My biggest fear may not be Death after all - what is even more frightening than Death is that this pessimistic, un-spiritual, unmotivated part of me might be who I really am and have always been.