I lurked about a year and finally joined to use the search feature. I'm grateful to find an online space that treats end-of-life choices with compassion and without judgment, while encouraging and supporting those in recovery.
Lately, I'm comparing my existence to Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Scrooge was disregarded, objectified, and treated with contempt throughout his childhood. He succeeded in business but failed in love. His only support system was his similarly self-loathing business partner Jacob Marley. By the end when Scrooge decides he wants to go on living, I'm left asking: Why bother? His best years are behind him. His potential is dried up. At best, he'll be remembered positively by a few people he helped personally. Everyone else will see him as an oddity. He's like a tobacco leaf, only useful once dead and dried up to be rolled, smoked, and enjoyed by the still-living.
I'm fortunate to have a good career doing work that I enjoy. In love and relationships, it's been an almost total failure. It took until my late 30's to expel my toxic family of origin from my life. I made a few attempts here and there since then to connect with others, with little success and mostly failure.
After years of escapism into binge eating and cannabis, I'm now sober for three weeks and starting a ketogenic diet. However, I don't allow fantasies about a better life. My motivation is not some late-in-life recovery and a final toss of the bones. I'm doing this because I refuse to die fat and stoned. I demand to see my true face in the mirror before I leave. After that, I'll give myself permission to exit peacefully. I don't have a method, and I won't give that serious thought until I reach the goal.
Without meaning to minimize any else's motivation or hard work, I ask: Why bother? Aside from my stated goal of seeing my true face before I go, what other purpose is there? I've had a couple little "tastes" of the fun that I missed out on in my 20's, and it's just not the same in my 40's. To reclaim the youthful fun and connection that I missed out on is an illusion. I'm not religious because I just can't pretend to believe the unbelievable, and I apply that to every area of life. If I'm deceiving myself, I won't relax and enjoy the moment.
Having decided that it's too late to pursue hedonism, the only purpose I can think of is to be of service to others. However, that feels unjust and unfair to me. Nobody intervened to help me when I needed it. I've walked through the Slough of Despond without help and taken the stones and pebbles that life tossed at me from the start. All I have to show for it is a good career, but even that didn't take off until my late 30's, and the education and job search that led to my career wasn't kind. Since no one cared about me back when it mattered, it comes off as self-deprecating to care about others.
To wrap this up, I sometimes wish that I were shameless. Years ago, I saw a young woman and an elderly man embracing and kissing in public. From the age disparity, it's unthinkable that they were together for any reason other than his money and her youth. And yet, neither of them showed even a hint of self-consciousness. It's easy to judge the dirty old man, and that memory makes me feel queasy. But he appeared to embrace his dirtiness. His shamelessness, his refusal to judge himself, might have made him one of the luckiest men alive.
Lately, I'm comparing my existence to Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Scrooge was disregarded, objectified, and treated with contempt throughout his childhood. He succeeded in business but failed in love. His only support system was his similarly self-loathing business partner Jacob Marley. By the end when Scrooge decides he wants to go on living, I'm left asking: Why bother? His best years are behind him. His potential is dried up. At best, he'll be remembered positively by a few people he helped personally. Everyone else will see him as an oddity. He's like a tobacco leaf, only useful once dead and dried up to be rolled, smoked, and enjoyed by the still-living.
I'm fortunate to have a good career doing work that I enjoy. In love and relationships, it's been an almost total failure. It took until my late 30's to expel my toxic family of origin from my life. I made a few attempts here and there since then to connect with others, with little success and mostly failure.
After years of escapism into binge eating and cannabis, I'm now sober for three weeks and starting a ketogenic diet. However, I don't allow fantasies about a better life. My motivation is not some late-in-life recovery and a final toss of the bones. I'm doing this because I refuse to die fat and stoned. I demand to see my true face in the mirror before I leave. After that, I'll give myself permission to exit peacefully. I don't have a method, and I won't give that serious thought until I reach the goal.
Without meaning to minimize any else's motivation or hard work, I ask: Why bother? Aside from my stated goal of seeing my true face before I go, what other purpose is there? I've had a couple little "tastes" of the fun that I missed out on in my 20's, and it's just not the same in my 40's. To reclaim the youthful fun and connection that I missed out on is an illusion. I'm not religious because I just can't pretend to believe the unbelievable, and I apply that to every area of life. If I'm deceiving myself, I won't relax and enjoy the moment.
Having decided that it's too late to pursue hedonism, the only purpose I can think of is to be of service to others. However, that feels unjust and unfair to me. Nobody intervened to help me when I needed it. I've walked through the Slough of Despond without help and taken the stones and pebbles that life tossed at me from the start. All I have to show for it is a good career, but even that didn't take off until my late 30's, and the education and job search that led to my career wasn't kind. Since no one cared about me back when it mattered, it comes off as self-deprecating to care about others.
To wrap this up, I sometimes wish that I were shameless. Years ago, I saw a young woman and an elderly man embracing and kissing in public. From the age disparity, it's unthinkable that they were together for any reason other than his money and her youth. And yet, neither of them showed even a hint of self-consciousness. It's easy to judge the dirty old man, and that memory makes me feel queasy. But he appeared to embrace his dirtiness. His shamelessness, his refusal to judge himself, might have made him one of the luckiest men alive.
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