thedorkiestdiary

[thedorkiestdiary]

TW: talk of guns and death

Change is like a skilled assassin. One day everything is as it always was, and the next, before you even get a chance to realize it, is different. Like a bullet from a sniper gun barreling toward you too fast for you to notice. Sometimes it’s quick and painless. Other times it shoots you through the heart and splits it right down the middle.

Nothing prepares you for an unbeknownst bullet headed in your direction in the same way nothing prepares you for the moment you realize everything in your life is irreversibly different. It’s never a moment spurred by a sudden change. No a sudden change would be far too easy to recognize and adapt to. The moment resembles the kind of change where you don’t even recognize the very thing that changes. That moment where you feel pure isolation from your past self. The moment you walk into your childhood room and don’t recognize the bed you slept in. The moment you forget the sound of grandad’s voice. The moment the name of your childhood dog slips your mind. Worst of all, the moment you just can’t remember.

The scariest part of change is that there’s no real way to cope with it. Change’s only remedy is an absence of the mind. As we grow older and go through this constant cycle of change, the things that used to hold so much value in our life diminish in tandem with our memories. We adapt to these new realities by failing to remember that of our past. It’s scary to think that everything we held near and dear is buried somewhere in an unmarked grave. It’s even scarier to think that everything we hold near and dear will occupy the adjacent plot.

Despite how ominous the idea of change is, the sentiment it holds is what makes the human experience completely unique. The idea that people care so much about their current existence, they can’t bear the thought of losing it. The heightened cognizance of one’s own being causing such an attachment to their reality. It truly is daunting.

Though the constant of change is prevalent in all human life, what is to say of those that can’t merely forget? Those that catch a glimpse of the reality they’re in and can’t shake the idea of what it once was? For those people, change is a bullet wound to the heart. Not the easy kind that would take a life in a matter of seconds, but the slow and metaphorical kind that punctures the heart yet doesn’t rupture a vessel.

When the realization comes, it’s almost as if the bullet weren’t metaphorical. The image in the mirror appears cold and blue. There’s no person standing in front of the mirror, just a body. The remnants of the person were laid to rest in the grave at which their memories reside. The idea of change became too abysmal for the person to withstand, yet they were forced to still stand. Others are left to wonder how a body so young and so healthy could have no life left to live. Those that share the experience know they started wishing the bullet weren’t metaphorical.