Live like you're dying

When you first hear the world shattering news that your life has been cut short, it’s strangely freeing. I can’t say it’s freeing in a good way in every sense, it’s more like detachment. There are situations where that detachment comes in handy. For a thirteen year old it’s odd, I didn't have weeks, months, or a year, I had around twenty or so, good years at least. This idea that my life was half the length it should be propelled me to action where otherwise I might sit and do nothing. Simply because I was detached, I acted with reckless abandon not really concerned for consequence. Because at the end of the day no punishment, no consequence would hold a candle to death. On the other side of the coin, the detachment made me feel constantly isolated and alone, no matter the friends I had or what I did. This detachment was only one of the twists that would pull my mind and warp reality.

 Another larger factor was time. Time is relative and to me minutes feel like hours, days like weeks, often it’s been a boon, but most of the time it’s simply nothing. Reason being; others do not live on the same time, most people live at a regular pace. In a world where instant communication is the standard this creates confusing messages. While in person I can pace my mind and topics fairly well, without the nonverbal cues in an instant setting, I’m already three tangents ahead. So conversation becomes fragmented, confusing and often I come off a dullard. This compounded that detachment, if only because it built anger and frustration towards those close to me. In time I’ve learned to understand and properly deal with the emotions.

This distortion of time and detachment propelled me to be far less inhibited, so there is truth to the phrase. But the idea of living without regret, to live like you’re dying, to love with passion and honesty, to fight for what you believe in, and do something beyond yourself. It’s great for a movie script, but when you’re ten years into it, and you start to feel like you’re dying the tune starts to carry some unwanted vibrato. People feel sorry for you, and distance themselves from you, a heavy weight built itself around me in this time, and I carry it still.

In my relationships, I fell fast and hard, in my friendships I open myself completely, and will give and do whatever they may need, in my hardships, I’ve fought with tenacity, and failed often, but never would that stop me for long. These ideas sound romantic, but in life, the favor is seldom returned as reciprocity falls short of the ideal. I’ve learned that people will disappoint, and it’s worsened by the eternity of seconds manifested by my mental time distortion. But I’ve also learned to just continue with what I do; regardless, because those who don’t disappoint are amazing. Those intense sometimes, instant relationships are part and parcel to the movie script, so there are elements of “Live like you are dying” within my reality of it. But I feel like this treatment will allow me to shed that movie cliché, and will be more freeing and tie closer to the intent of the phrase than it ever did upon diagnosis.