Considering the Alternative

We've all had thoughts about our own mortality. More often than not, they got shuffled to the back of our minds as something we'd have to deal with later, not right now. But when you approach my age (60 in March), those thoughts distill themselves from that seldom visited region to the area where the more imminent and pressing matters are deposited.

I've had the cold chill up the spine response to my own cessation of existence, simply because I could not imagine myself not being. Will the dead and disembodied me float endlessly over the earth, watching life play on for those I left behind, or will I simply fall into a "Big Sleep", sans dreaming and leg cramps? When I was younger and allowed myself to consider shuttling off this earthly coil, I invariably became frightened and forced myself to thinking more palatable thoughts.

Well it's now, and mortality looms real. Strangely, the fear I experienced in my youth has been replaced with a feeling not of resignation, but reprieve. Let me pause here, dear reader and assure you that this is not the diatribe of one considering suicide, nor is it a chapter in the "Woe is Me Chronicles". I'm simply considering the alternative. When you allow yourself to put aside the more self centered emotions that accompany the ultimate demise of the earthly you, death isn't such a distasteful sequel.

Imagine if you will, sleeping through your next ridiculously inflated mortgage payment without fear of counteraction! Rest peacefully knowing that every single person you left behind will live on without you...because it is human nature to rebound from personal tragedy. Consider that fact that absolutely nothing more will be expected of you. Nothing. No earthly obligation would ever again interfere with your profound slumber.

As I grow older, I find myself craving sleep. As I grow wiser, I find it's not such a bad alternative.