2001-08-28 Late at night, sometimes, I keep thinking of death. It can't be that bad. I remember Milla saying that when her heart stopped, everything just turned black. I don't know if I can trust anything she says. But. Katariina asked if she had seen anything, angels or some sort of heaen or anything. I got the impression she believed in life after death. It makes me feel good to think there wouldn't be anything afterwards. I don't want heaven, and I don't believe in rebirth. I think of my grandmother sometimes at night. She died last year, coughing up blood. I went to see her at some point, before she died. The room swinged in her eyes, she was so full of morphine. She grabbed my hand and squeezed, so hard it felt impossible. She was dying, after all. Death, to me, is a relief. It certainly was for her. I don't want to die that way, but it's possible I will. My mother couldn't stand to watch her mother die. She kept saying that there must be something they (tm) could do. But in the end medicine is powerless, even if they found out which genes cause aging. And I think it's a good thing. Think of a world where everyone would live forever. It horrifies me. I'll probably die of lung cancer if I keep on smoking. It doesn't matter, not now. Not because I know I have to die of something. I wish it was predictable. I wish I could decide how I'm going to die. Because if there was a pill that'd kill me, I'd take it at some point, however un-depressed I might be. Because even then, when life isn't horrible and painful, I want to fade away. Like tonight. Nothing feels like anything, but there's a terrible sadness inside me. And a wish for it all to end. I'm not going to kill myself, of course. Not now, maybe not ever. Sometimes I just wish I knew I could do it. Just like I wish I could lead a normal life. Get married, get kids, get a job. Sometimes I long for that house that's so imaginary it's terrifying. I know what I can get, and what I can't. It's obvious. If I had more hope for future, perhaps today would be bearable. It used to be so. I could live in my daydreams at night, and the day didn't exist at all. Everything disappeared. I'm a grownup now. I don't have daydreams anymore. That always used to be my definition of grownups. No dreams, no fantasies, nothing that wasn't here now. It used to make me sad, but now I'm grateful of it. I wouldn't be able to bear having everything one night and then waking up in a different world. I don't know if I ever hoped those daydreams would be true. No, I never believed that. But perhaps I hoped it. I love watching the city lights at night. I love the beauty. I adore flying at night, over strange towns and seeing only their distant lights far below. And I love stepping out of the plane in somewhere warmer than it is here, and I love watching the moon above a strange sea. I love those warm and strange winds. I can't explain the relief a strange town causes in me. I can't explain the relief of traveling. When I was seventeen I bought an inter-rail ticket and sat in trains all over Germany and Austria. The landscape rushed by, and I didn't have to think of tomorrow. I felt free then. I feel free now when I sit in a train waiting to get somewhere. Nothing has changed. It's late now. I should be in bed. I wish I could, at some point, travel somewhere with someone I love. Not much to ask, is it? (Too much, I know that now.) |
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