THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 120 - DEATH

I think about death throughout the year but I give it special attention in this time. It has been especially easier to think about death having actually died already. I was terrified of death growing up, but in age I recognize that it was really fear of not doing what I’m supposed to do on Earth. It’s hard for a kid to say something like that without seeming like an overserious & ominous person, which I wasn’t. It’s not depressing for me to think about death. It’s definitionally morbid, sure, sad because I miss these people, many were cut down much too early, but a lot of them were old & ready to go. When my mom died I started to really meditate on death daily. I wore skull beads along with my usual skulls & all black. Having always been into the more Gothic side of Punk & vice versa, thinking about death or having constant reminders of it are not uncommon. This morning I thought about each person that I know who died. I pictured them in my head, tried to actually be with them, give them a hug. It’s incredibly sad, but the way I experience emotions now is like an intense wave that lasts for five minutes & then it subsides & I go back to feeling normal. It’s part of the way that my brain operates post-stroke. I prefer it very much to the way emotions used to build up & weigh me down. This is all to say that my aim of feeling these feelings & not repressing them or avoiding them has been directly attached to the new way I feel & I’m not sure I’d be able to do it with the way I used to feel these things. Thinking about death this way reminds me that I have a limited time on Earth to do the things I want to, appreciate the things, the people around me, take time with the moments that are around & not take them for granted. It makes me appreciate things like my cup of (decaf, I say this as someone who spent most of their life over caffeinated.) coffee more.