As a child, the notion of, “Life is precious and not something to waste!” somehow translated into a mandate of, “Guard your time, guard it, guard it, watch it, control it!” And I was often satisfied, but often lonely.

Getting older, moving out on my own, and being humbled at the realization of just how much I, as a human-being, needed other human-beings, that mandate was overturned and I often told myself, “Who are you missing out being with? Who are you missing?” When I tried to set out to do things, the solitude that had once been as comfortable as one’s favorite winter jacket, no longer fit and I ran from it every chance I got.

Today somehow became a day about death… not just with the sad news I received about a student’s passing in America, but down to the movie I watched and those I ate dinner with. And so it also was a day about life; you know what I mean. You hear beautiful songs and have aphorisms that dwell in the back of your mind or in your heart as well.

But no matter how many you have memorized or how many you recite to yourself in the face of a loss, they can’t shield you from experiencing it. You can run from it – the same way you can run from satisfaction or loneliness. You can fill a whole life running from things, I suppose. But if you meet it, you cannot deflect it.

I had a keen fear of death around this time, two years ago. It persisted for many months. Sometimes I could not sleep. Sometimes it made me feel sick. It was never far from my thoughts, no matter what kind of day it was.

I would cry over it and agonize over it and wonder, Why? Why at twenty three? But I knew why, and that was because as a child, as a young adult, I’d never stopped to wrap my head around it, to really accept it, or even acknowledge that it was there.

This year, the fear went somewhere. At first, I didn’t know where. Sometimes, I would recall it suddenly, like a phone call you’re supposed to make, and brace myself for all the doubt and uncertainty that came with calling it by its name and looking it in its eyes, Death… and there would be nothing. No sense of dread. No endless barrage of questions.

Have I become simple? Am I in denial? Am I that good at running now?

But no, that’s not it. It’s none of the above. Today, I realized it – ah, I have been looking at Death. Every single day. In the sparkling eyes of children. In the jokes I share with friends. In the stories I read in books. They are Death. And the flowers I trample upon, the fish I gut, the papers I throw in the trash, they are Life.

Coming to this conclusion, I had thought my days would darken or lose something, a spark, a light, something, but it’s the opposite. I thought I had to win some sort of victory over death while alive, in order to live my life to the fullest, but…

I’m twenty four; Life is here, but Death is here too. They have always been… they always will be. I don’t have any pretty words for it… I haven’t the mind for making any at this moment, but I do have today, with the sunflowers simultaneously blooming and wilting on my porch, tonight, with the people I can see this moment and news of the people I will never be able to see again, and tomorrow… and when, someday, I don’t have tomorrow, someone else will. And that is why, really, I will always have it too.

And with this, I am satisfied, and not at all lonely.