Failing

Tonight I am angry, irritable, and probably a bit depressed (big shock). Angry at the world, angry at a slowly failing body and mind, angry at myself for not being able to just suck it up and deal with it.

This is not the sort of angry that leads to productive creativity.

I've never liked acknowledging mortality. I don't mind death too much, besides the bizarre mystery of it all. It's the slow decline that I dread. Accumulating aches and pains. Getting tired a bit more easily. Losing the razor-sharp memory I used to have. I now struggle sometimes to remember relatives' names or simple facts.

And I'm only 36.

So how much worse will it get, I wonder? Am I fading fast so that I will fail utterly in a decade or two? Or is it just the beginning of the long, drawn-out struggle that everyone who avoids death faces? It pisses me off that it's something I have to deal with. And I haven't even reached the stages where it ceases to be mere inconvenience and starts to be the kind of thing you have to plan your life around.

You start paying down your debts, own your house, accumulate a nice pad of savings. Just in time to spend more and more of your money keeping your cells replicating for a bit longer. But they get tired, just as you get tired. People say that death becomes a relief at some point. As a depressive person, I've always kind of gotten that.

I'm certainly not looking forward to or seeking death. But life has been so burdensome at times, even at the peak of youth and health. How much harder will it get?