Light bulb moment #3: I'm mortal, and that might be ok

This is where I get into my fear of death. Just to preface, I don't wear all black, have a pierced lip, or use a black Sharpie for eyeliner. I'm just a sort-of-normal person with some sort-of-normal (?) anxieties about the fact that I don't live forever.

Let's start with some preemptive comic relief. This anecdote came from Abby:

A woman picks a new primary care doctor. After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, the doctor says she's doing fairly well for her age (she just turned 60). A little concerned about that comment, she couldn't resist asking him, "Do you think I'll live to be 80?"

He asked, "Do you smoke tobacco, or drink beer or wine?"

"Oh no," she said. "I don't do drugs either."

Then he asked, "Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?"

She said, "Not much. My former doctor said all that red meat is very unhealthy."

"Do you spend time in the sun, playing golf, sailing, biking, that kind of thing?"

"No, I don't," she said.

"Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?"

"No."

He looked at her and said, "Then, why do you even give a shit?"

Alright, so back to my morbidness...
I don't talk about this much because I think it's bizarre and will cause my number of blog followers to decrease rapidly, but coming to terms with mortality has been a big part of this whole recovery thing. I've run up against this question of "What's the point?" in relation to life so often, many times using it as a rationale to "put off" getting well. I've told myself I won't really get better and live my life until I know it has meaning (which is sort of confining, as I don't think we can find meaning until we get better...but, anyway). The fact that life is so short has left me confused as to the meaning of it all. I've never had a therapist really explore this with me. I probably didn't know I needed to discuss it until somewhat recently.

A while back, Dr. C made this statement: "At their core, people with anxiety are usually afraid of one of two things -- going crazy or dying."

He's read one of my novels and said it's pretty apparent that my main fear is dying. Then he said, bluntly, "You die, I die, we all die. It sucks. It just does." Just this made me want to cry. His response to his own statement was to smile and say, "So what?"

He's right. I mean, yes, we all die. If you're like me, perpetually living in the future, the prospects do not look good. It seems the only real answer is to stay in the present. The present is nice. It offers things like roses to smell. I admit I don't naturally notice roses, or think to smell them, but I do have days when I'm more in that zone, cruising along content, not really thinking about what's around the next corner. And, while a part of me thinks this is lazy, that mistakes and missteps will abound, that I'm going to be terribly unprepared for some catastrophe (like running out of detergent on laundry day, for example ;)), I can't deny that I feel a hell of a lot better in this "lazy" state.

Still, the ambitious part of me says it's not totally realistic to always live in the present. Animals do this, but humans have the ability to think ahead, to imagine. We all have goals, usually associated with some future time (whether it's the next day or the next year). For me, I think coming to terms with mortality means putting less stress on making this short time I have "perfect." I'm sure part of my uneasiness about death is related to my maximizer stance toward life. I feel pressure to do it "right," to be perfect in every choice. Life feels so tenuous, so fragile. What's ironic is that the rituals and restrictions I've developed in the face of this reality (that life is tenuous and fragile) have only inhibited my ability to live (quite literally, at one point). It's like this:

Want to live life to the fullest --> Try to plan ways to do this --> Get so obsessive compulsive that I develop a tidy set of rules to follow for an illusion of perfection --> Settle for the illusion --> Stop experiencing life

At this point, I go back to wanting to live life to the very fullest and there's a choice: I can either keep doing what I've done for years, or I can let go of this need to live perfectly and just focus on enjoying. Is enjoying "lazy"? Would my life be a "good" one if I didn't accomplish X or Y, but I enjoyed myself anyway? Would it even be possible for me to derive enjoyment without those accomplishments? Maybe I'll have to part ways with some of my standards and expectations. Dr. C says it's about figuring out what's worth it to me in this life, what I want. I told him, "But what if I don't know what I want?" He said, "You do. A part of you knows."

What's worth it to you in this life? What gives your life meaning?
(I warned you this was the "Deep Thoughts" series. I promise it'll end soon :)).

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Today's gratitude:

1. Lunch breaks at home. We live close enough to home to enjoy The Colbert Report and hot lunches on our couch. It's awesome.

2. We got our tickets for Maui in April!

3. I looked into the possibility of getting a pet sitter for vacations because the boarding process is completely traumatizing (for me more than the cats, I'm sure). I have some good referrals :)

4. "State of Play." I watched this last night and really enjoyed it. Funny memory: In treatment, my roommate said I used to talk about Ben Affleck in my sleep.

5. I'm actually looking forward to snack time in 15 minutes :) I just sounded like a kindergartner, didn't I?