Bed != Sleep
Apr. 27th, 2006 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupI went to bed, but I didn't fall asleep. This feelis like a long night. My head is full of old thoughts. Not thoughts that have been around a while; thoughts that make you feel old.
I find myself wondering about choices made and choices not made in the recent and distant pasts; about where I am, where I wanted to be, and where I'll go from here; about my friends drifting apart from me, vanishing, moving away, or dieing; about the things I've never done, and may never get the chance to do; about projects that have gathered dust for far too many years and that, if I am honest with myself, may never be taken up again and finished.
Once, when I was six I dreamed that I somehow ended up with my mother's body. The thing that puzzled me in the dream was how anyone could be coordinated when their arms and legs were so much longer than 'normal'. I seem to recall being endlessly fascinated with reaching out for objects with 'old arms': arms that were too long, and with wrinkles on the backs of the hands.
Lately I've been noticing that I have those arms now. When I reach for an item across my desk, some fragment of that six-year old still stuck inside of me marvels that I now own arms that strange and long, and when I see the backs of my hands when I type, I notice the veins and wrinkles.
I've been using keyboards for over 20 years, with the backs of my hands visible whenever I type, and I never noticed my hands ageing before sometime last year. Now I notice several times a month, and its always shocks and saddens me.
And on nights like tonight I can't help but reflect that if I were to die in my sleep, how little the world would notice my passing.
I find myself wondering about choices made and choices not made in the recent and distant pasts; about where I am, where I wanted to be, and where I'll go from here; about my friends drifting apart from me, vanishing, moving away, or dieing; about the things I've never done, and may never get the chance to do; about projects that have gathered dust for far too many years and that, if I am honest with myself, may never be taken up again and finished.
Once, when I was six I dreamed that I somehow ended up with my mother's body. The thing that puzzled me in the dream was how anyone could be coordinated when their arms and legs were so much longer than 'normal'. I seem to recall being endlessly fascinated with reaching out for objects with 'old arms': arms that were too long, and with wrinkles on the backs of the hands.
Lately I've been noticing that I have those arms now. When I reach for an item across my desk, some fragment of that six-year old still stuck inside of me marvels that I now own arms that strange and long, and when I see the backs of my hands when I type, I notice the veins and wrinkles.
I've been using keyboards for over 20 years, with the backs of my hands visible whenever I type, and I never noticed my hands ageing before sometime last year. Now I notice several times a month, and its always shocks and saddens me.
And on nights like tonight I can't help but reflect that if I were to die in my sleep, how little the world would notice my passing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 05:34 am (UTC)I think I would be lucky to go in my sleep... there's something comforting about simply not waking up from a beautiful dream. I shall likely die in some horrific train wreck, or terrorist bombing in Ottawa... and very few would lament about the events... much less my passing, I think.
nini Stirling!
*hugs*
:) N
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 05:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 05:54 am (UTC)I can't say, "Don't think it." You already did think it, but I hope you realize how untrue this statement is. Maybe it won't be on the news, but the world - your world - all the people you've touched - will do much more than "notice."
When they do come, only sweet restful dreams for you.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 05:58 am (UTC)As an athiest, I long ago concluded that the only lasting legacy I could leave would be to have a lasting impression on the world; to leave it in a better state than I found it. So far, I don't think I've succeeded.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 02:33 pm (UTC)your world loves you... and wouldn't just mourn the loss of you for a while. Ripples would be felt for centuries after your passing.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 01:02 pm (UTC)It's a bit overwhelming to think of the *world* having been changed by your contribution. [Doesn't that usually require fame?]
Can you not be happy about having changed the lives of a few people? Definitely the ones closest to you, but also the lives of people you may never have met (the butterfly wing effect). And that is also a salient point: that you will never know and possibly *shouldn't* know.
I'm wondering if, in your subconscious, there's a significant anniversary coming up (perhaps of a death) that is leading you to such sleep-robbing thoughts.
I hope the light of day will lift you out of your preoccupation with your legacy.
No-nonsense but sympathetic hugs,
H.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 01:34 pm (UTC)And I realize that I may have had a larger impact that I know, but that thought seldom helps during the hour of the wolf.
Anyway, I'm feeling somewhat better in the light of day.
*hugs*
Normal
Date: 2006-04-27 02:04 pm (UTC)"Who are you and what have you done with Stirling???"
Second, those are normal middle-of-the-night, middle-of-the-life thoughts. And, questioning usually leads us down interesting (and often unchartered) paths.
Third, just a thought, maybe it's time to rethink being an atheist...sounds like a 'knock, knock, knock on heaven's door' might be just what you could use right now.
Oh, I'll do it for you!
Dear God,
Stirling doesn't believe in You, but I know You believe in him.
Why not send him a sign of some sorts today but, nothing scary, even you do find that sort of thing funny.
Yours in humor and humanity,
rosy1
Re: Normal
Date: 2006-04-27 03:27 pm (UTC)As for these thoughts being typical of a mid-life crisis: I've noticed. It doesn't much help me deal with them though.
Re: Normal
Date: 2006-04-27 03:49 pm (UTC)In any event, I hope you will feel better...and if you won't be offended, I will keep a good thought...and okay,I'll admit it,a prayer or two for you.
Re: Normal
Date: 2006-04-27 04:26 pm (UTC)Ab-normal
Date: 2006-04-27 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 02:09 pm (UTC)It's that face that stares back at me in the mirror every day, wondering where all those 'laugh lines' around the eyes came from.
I have become my father. At least, in form.
As for leaving a mark on the world requiring fame? What hubris. Making the world a better place starts at home and friends, and I struggle to come up with a 'celebrity' that I admire. (Does Einstein count?)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 03:00 pm (UTC)And the aging of my face never bothered me, because it was never the face I expected to see. For many, many years my mental model of my face bore no resemblence at all to what I actually looked like.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-29 02:43 am (UTC)[Joke] And your mental model of your face probably incorporated some fuzzy logic due to the beard all those years! [/Joke] I've had this mustache for...25 years? And gotten rid of it once for all of 2 weeks...so if I want to disappear, I've just got to go clean shaved, and no one will ever recognize me...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-29 03:02 am (UTC)I think I formed a mental image of what I would look like as an adult when I was 10 or so. Naturally, I looked a lot like James Bond. Square jaw and all.
Somehow, my body never got the memo.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-29 03:07 am (UTC)