This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper

How do you really measure the worth of a person's life?

I mean, I get that everyone is important, and everyone has infinite worth and all, but some people accomplish more in their lives.  And I am not ambitious or driven or anything.  Don't expect great, important, things from me, because I don't have great, important, dreams.

I know how talented I am.  I know how much potential I have.  But I also know that I am not going to live up to that potential.  I will never be the best at anything, not even close.  In fact, it's quite likely that I will never even be successful in the typical sense of the word.

But you know what?  I'm really okay with that.

How do you really measure the worth of a person's life?

The contributions they made to art or science or literature or politics?  The size of the footprint they left on the minds of the human race?  The number of people whose lives they changed?

I sure hope not.

See, my circles are fairly small.  I don't know many people, and even out of the people I know, I don't have a deep emotional connection with most of them.  My potential for leaving a mark on people's soul is not particularly remarkable.

So how do you really measure the worth of a person's life?

What am I really trying to accomplish here?

I feel like I've been thinking about death a lot lately.  Is that morbid?  I wasn't trying to be, I've just been wondering about dying.  Like what happens to everyone who is left?  How long will it take for everyone to forget that I was ever here?  Who will come to my funeral?  Who would really miss me and who would just get back to living?

I'm sorry, now I feel like I'd better explain something.  I really don't want to die or anything.  Not right now.

But we're all going to, and I want to figure out what I'm doing here before I'm not here anymore.

"Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long"

The ordinary life of an invisible man

 

To disappear, or not to disappear?  That is the question.

Everyone else seems so good at moving on.  It's easy, right?  You make new friends, new inside jokes, new secrets, new stories, and eventually the new and the unfamiliar become real life.  You have been replaced by a doppelganger.

I don't want to be replaced.

I'm not sure why I feel so betrayed.  It's like, I expect everyone to miss me all the time, to be miserable now that I am not a piece of their life anymore, no matter how small that piece might have been.

I say, "You promised me.  You promised it would always be this way, we would always be this way.  I would always be this way."

But all I hear back is, "You're foolin' yourself kid, I never promised you anything."

And for some reason, I'm determined to be the last man standing.  I'm determined to be the last one to let go.  So I can rub it in everyone's faces I guess.

"Hey look, traitors, I kept my promise.  I held on longer than all of you."

And they'll say, "Hey, Shug, we never promised anything, remember?  And remember?  We even warned you we would be leaving you.

Have fun back in 2010 by yourself."

Don't worry though, the past isn't my only friend.  The future and I are like, besties.  We hang out all the time. And he promises me everything.  Pretty kids, a pretty husband, a pretty kitchen, a pretty house with a pretty garden, and in 5 years time we'll be pretty darn happy.

It's only the present that scares the cuss out of me.  I guess that's why I avoid it as much as I can.

I wore my hair in pigtails today and for some reason that's important.

-Shug