Black.

I am reminded as I dress in the morning

That every day is a funeral.

My own.

As I casually button my pants or tie my shoes,

I very studiously remember that every

    breath

    heartbeat

    blink

    thought

is another step toward my inevitable death.

I am not dying, per se, but I am dying.

We are all dying; some people just take longer than others.

Every moment I am alive I realize

That every moment I am a little less alive.

I am not depressed.

I am not suicidal.

But I am not immortal

Like everyone else my age.

I do not take unnecessary risks.

I wear a seatbelt.

I drive the speed limit.

I take my daily vitamins with fortified orange juice.

The more aware I am of my own mortality,

The more careful I am.

I may be slowly dying from life, but

I’m not going to do anything that might speed up the process.

In my own way, everything I do prepares me for death.

This helps me to deal, because

I know that I will die of a slow, wasting degenerative process.

I know this is fatalistic.

I know that at the moment of my death,

I will cling to the life I drift through now.

I will hang on to my own existence

And I will regret that I never made any effort to live

Because I was too busy waiting to die.

I know this now, and I will not do a single thing differently.

It’s easier to take the pain you know than the kind you don’t.

It’s easier to die than it is to live.

I am reminded of all this

When I wear the black:

Every day is my funeral.