As another year draws to a close, I think we can all look back and say.....

Seriously, you really think I'd start writing with that cliched piece of bullshit?

I'm probably expected to write some giant retrospective on the past 12 months. If you're looking for a guide to what has actually happened in my day to day life, then this journal won't have worked very well for you. If you want to know what it is that resides inside my head alongside my brain and all those pictures of boobs, then it still won't be of much use. The fact is there's so much going on behind my eyes that I can't even begin to put it into words. Occasionally things float to the surface, and when they do, you get to hear about them. That's pretty much how this year has been for me. Looking back, it just seems like one big mess. Nothing really jumps out at me. Occasionally I will remember things, but nothing sticks in my mind. I know that it's been a good year, because I've changed and grown. I'm not who I was on January 1st, and for myself, I am a better person. Yes, it has been a good year, but not a memorable one.

Enough of that though, I'm saving it. What I really want to talk about tonight is death.
It's a harsh fact of life that a lot of people are going to die this coming year. I don't know why this thought entered my head today, but it did, and it led to another thought. Who will those people be?

When someone dies it affects someone elses life, everybody knows that. I've been lucky enough in my lifetime to have never experienced the death of someone that truly mattered to me. I've only ever been to one funeral, and they've puzzled me ever since. It was the funeral of a kid from my high school. I never really talked to the guy, he was never even really nice to me. I only went because half the school did. I just remember wearing black because that's what you did, and I alsdo remember how fake the whole thing was. Every stood there inside the church and a few people got upset, but when we got outside, it was like a reunion. I hated that, and I left straightaway. To this day I've always promised myself that if I know I'm going to die, I'll write a guestlist for my funeral so no one fake can sneak in.

Most of the people who influence me are dead. Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, both people who inspired me to write, both dead. I can't help thinking that one of my living inspirations might join the list this year, and what effect this might have. Will they be glorified, remembered, or will they pass unnoticed, unappreciated. Am I the only one to whom they have true meaning?

The uncertainty is what people fear about death the most, but it is also it's most curious quality.
My dad has recently come out of hospital. He was in there to have a heart bypass operation. Everything went fine and he's home now, but while he was still in hospital, I was scared that I was going to lose him. This fear of death has made me a lot closer to him. Sometimes even something so dark can come with a blessing.

The death of this past year has given life to a whole host of curiosity and new uncertainties. But that's what being human is all about. If we didn't feel uncertainty about death, we wouldn't be able to truly feel alive.

xxo

Currently listening to: February Air - Lights