Tag: frightening

You live once, but you grow up thrice.

Hello, my dedicated readers. It has been a while, and for that, I must apologize. I felt I had much to say, but no great way to say it. I don’t ever want to feel I’m wasting my reader’s time, but most importantly, I want to feel proud of everything I deliver. Until now, I did not feel I could do such a task. I am, however, going to attempt to post more regularly. With that out of the way, one of the reasons I’ve been so quiet is actually the topic of today’s blog. It is my personal opinion that each person grows up three times.

The first time is legally. In the United States, an individual is classified as an adult upon reaching the age eighteen. At eighteen, most teenagers are finishing, or just recently finished, high school. They’re preparing to go out into the world and take in all it has to offer. Many are filled with hopes of what the future holds. Some begin working, others go off to school, while others wait patiently to see what comes their way.

The second time a person grows up is independently. This is the first time an individual pays a bill on their own, acquires debt of any sort, makes a big purchase, so forth. This is growth in the sense of realizing you’re on your own. I should mention now that each stage of growth can happen at any point. A person could reach this stage at sixteen, or be considered legally an adult at sixteen depending on circumstances. Like much of life, these are not considered absolutes.

The third time an individual grows up is, arguably, the most difficult growth of them all. Mentally. In many ways, this growth is depressing. It is the realization that life is not what you thought it would be, and the people you’ve surrounded yourself with are not who you thought they were. This is the moment where long held relationships are brought into question, closely examined to judge compatibility. It is the moment when you question everything you’ve done with your life, and compare it to what you want to do in your future. Have you made the right choices? Are your actions moving you forward? Dreams are replaced with reality. It is a hard pill to swallow, and can break you. It is painful, much like the growing pains of our youth, because not everyone reaches this stage at the same time. You’ll find friendships that you’d always counted on distancing, interests you’ve always held slipping away into obscurity, and you’re left wondering…what’s the point? You feel, suddenly, very alone.

What is the point?

Here’s the beauty of the third stage. It is not a guarantee deal breaker. Those around you may grow to match your new found adulthood. Others will not. Your priorities will change. Just like when you made your first big purchase by yourself, you can control how this growth controls your life. Those that refuse to grow may cease to matter, but you find those who grew with you grow closer to you. Dreams may be replaced with reality, but we all shape our reality. You now have the clearest mind to make those dreams come true. Perhaps with some adjustments. This is different for everyone and it is painful. But you have the strength to push forward.

The reason for my silence can be blamed on growth number three. I’ve had to make quite a number of changes in my life, not all of them easy. I did feel broken. I fought hard for friendships I knew, deep down, were over. I’d become so focused on the lack of direction towards the things I wanted that I became stagnant. Upon realizing what I was experiencing, I finally surrendered to it and accepted the change. I was the one holding myself back rather than making myself go in the direction I wanted to go.

I started having dreams again.

I’m not holding onto as much stress as I was by trying to conquer the world’s problems, while it spit on me in return. I learned to pick my own battles, I learned to appreciate what was important. It hurts. It absolutely hurts. You begin to accept the things you cannot control, you cannot handle, and you find a new path. Even if you have to carve that path from stone with a spoon.

Do not be afraid of this growth, my friends. It is okay to be afraid. It is okay to make mistakes. It is okay to try new things. It is okay to fail. It is okay to say no. You will come out the other side stronger than ever before. I am not preaching from the perspective of a success story, I’m telling you from the point of view of someone who has finally realized…life is mine… Truly mine… And I’m okay with that.

I hope this, in some small way, helps someone out there.

Death, Dying, Dead

What is it about the paranormal that frightens us, and why are we so afraid of death, dying, and the dead?

I was watching an episode of Ghost Adventures, mostly to laugh at them, when all of a sudden I start hearing bangs and creaks on my end. It sort of startled me, as things had been relatively at ease only moments before. Now, as I have stated in previous posts, my house is haunted and I am used to it. I am not used to, however, going from sudden stillness, to suddenly being surrounded.

The experience did, however, get my mind twisting and turning. What is it that actually frightens us? If we stop and think about it, a ghost is just the memory of our former consciousness trapped in an ethereal like body. I realize it is more complicated than that, but essentially what I am trying to say is…they are people, just with no bodies.

I’ve sat down and mapped it out in my brain, and each one comes back to one common factor: Control–or lack thereof. I’ll explain my thought process here.

Being around the dead (as in corpses) makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I don’t mean the gruesome, morbid decay of flesh, or the horribly mangled bodies…Just… dead people. Like, in a funeral home. The idea of being near a body, touching a body, etc makes a lot of people nervous. I had a good talk with a friend of mine a few nights ago, and she stated the reason for her unease was she couldn’t “feel anything”. There was no life, there was no spark, no soul to animate the flesh. Just a body. Being around the dead acts as a constant reminder of our own humanity. Everyone knows they are going to die, but it is very hard, if not impossible, to imagine simply no longer existing. Because of this, I honestly believe it is one of the biggest reasons why people believe in heaven, hell, reincarnation, etc so strongly. It gives us something to look forward to, our minds can continue onward. But our death is something that we cannot control, and what happens after we die is out of our hands as well.

Watch any show about ghosts, and you’ll see it pretty quickly and easily that people are terrified of them. Why? Because it is part of the “unknown” factor. The idea of someone, or something, being around us that we cannot see is the ultimate paranoia, something that has been embedded in us from the start. To some, having a ghost or spirit around is similar to having someone break into your house. You’ve no idea what they’ve touched, what they’ve seen, what they’ve taken, etc. Our home is our safe spot, our fortress if you will. Others are not supposed to invade our safe zone, and yet, here is this being that floats around without our knowing. What are they watching us doing? What have they seen? What do they know? Not to mention the fact, how can we be sure it is a ghost? What if it is something worse, just pretending to be a ghost? It all leads back to the unknowns, and we cannot control the unknowns.

Even weird people like me get startled sometimes, as I’ve already explained. I find the human body to be a fascinating topic, and I find death and the afterlife to be equally as fascinating. I’m one of those people who wants to learn what is beyond the grave, so to speak.

Do you agree? Is it really as simple as being reminded of our humanity, and losing control of the situation?