Finally, A Bit Of Relief

This is Part 4. The first 3 Parts are here, here & here.

......

Perhaps it was the sunshine. Perhaps it was just the comedown after the emotional release the night before. For whatever reason, I woke up the next day feeling a bit different, but in a good way. I didn't start off the morning with a panic attack, which probably helped. Of course, anytime after I've had a good cry I end up feeling much better. But I wasn't completely out of the woods, not just yet. Just because I didn't start the day in panic mode didn't mean that I still didn't have other issues to face.

As the day progressed, I still remained panic attack-free. Furthermore, I started thinking about how I could turn all this into something positive. The prior two weeks of anxiety had a significant impact on me, and specifically, my personal philosophy. This confrontation on my philosophy on life forced me to reevaluate certain things that I valued in life. I felt that, if I didn't make any changes to these values, that I was going to be living a life that conflicted with my philosophy on life.

I met with Wac later that morning at a coffee shop with an attitude I wasn't capable of having before. I was speaking in a jumbled mess of sound bits, spitting out thoughts as they came into my head, trying to form them into a coherent statement. I still wasn't personally comfortable with the fact that I will die one day, but I was beginning to feel comfortable about what I wanted to do until that day arrives. I wanted to start traveling more, I wanted to get into better health so that I can enjoy life as long as possible, I wanted to free myself financially, I wanted to start going out more. And as I was speaking, I started realizing that none of these were any new revelations. I didn't come out of this some radically different person. The only thing different that day is that the sun was shining.

So maybe it was all just seasonal depression. I had spent two weeks in the sun not even a month prior, surrounded by family and friends in two states. I left all that to come back home, a city encased in clouds and drenched in cold. I came back to a stagnant job, a constricting apartment, and the same financial struggles I left behind. So maybe all of that triggered some sort of depression inside of me, and that first panic attack was just kindling for the fire.

Whether or not it was depression or some intense philosophical awakening, I really didn't know. What I did know is that whatever caused this, it was unlike any similar experiences before. Nothing really changed that morning; the fact that I will die one day is still an inevitability. But for the first time in weeks, that thought didn't scare me. Perhaps something was ignited in me to start living life differently, perhaps not. All I knew was, for the first time in weeks, I was smiling again. There I was, sitting in a coffee shop with my girlfriend, the sun squeezing between the buildings, talking about how I really want to go to Iceland. At that moment, we could have been blindsided by a runaway truck crashing into the building, or shot down by a crazed homeless person, maybe eaten alive by the Cloverfield monster. I wouldn't have been able to look back afterwards and think "Man, I wish I would have lived my life differently" or "Really? THAT'S how I die?" Nor would I have been able to look back and think that at least I was happy on my last day, enjoying a wonderful moment with my girlfriend.

But I was happy again. I wasn't worried anymore about what's going to happen after I die. Instead, I was thinking about how to enjoy life up until that final day.