That Rabid Fear

Last week, I thought I had rabies. I was staying with a friend who had taken in a stray cat a few weeks previously, and it scratched me. Or bit me. I'm actually not sure. It all happened under the cover of a chair I very ignorantly reached my hand under. But it looked an awful lot like a scratch so its probably a safe bet that nails rather than teeth were involved. Needless to say, I made the utterly stupid choice of going on WebMD and it told me I had rabies. And that it was fatal.

So, in the time between my sealed fate and my mother telling me over the phone that I was stupid and that I should never have watched Old Yeller, I contemplated my death. I considered how limited my time was on this earth. I thought about the seconds I had wasted and the seconds I had used fully. I realized that the former far outweighed the latter. I felt guilt at the idea of my parents outliving me, frustration at the fact that I wasn't yet published, paralysis at the idea of the void. And I cried a little. And then I cried a lot. And I ate a lot of ice cream because I was convinced I wouldn't be around long enough to gain the weight. And I laid on the floor with my cheek pressed hard to the cool tile so I wouldn't float away. And the cat in question curled next to me. Days passed (not in that particular state of course. I had to work and all that.) and eventually I came to accept that I didn't have rabies. That death was not imminent and certain. That I had not been given an exact timeline of heartbeats and breaths. Except I had.

I could not un-think the fact that my time was limited. I could not get the grim reaper off my back. I could no longer accept the uncertainty of my life span: eight days or eighty years. I was obsessed with the human destination. Everywhere I went I felt like there were numbers ticking above people's heads. I heard about murders and epidemics and car accidents and I felt them keenly and closely. And it should have made me brave and free, to not know my own fate, to take things just as they came and give in to my powerlessness. But I was no heroine in my own existential crisis. I was simply afraid.

Late last Saturday, I got a text from my friend asking me if I'd listened to a podcast called Welcome to Night Vale. The premise is a made-up radio show in a dystopia where strange and extraordinary things occur. She'd been trying to get me to listen to it for months, and I'd kept telling her that I was busy, that I'd do it later. But, at that point, I was no longer certain that there would be a later. So I listened. I drank tea. I had toast and jam. And I fell into that world and those characters. I let them numb me and hold me and take me away. And on this radio show, in the middle of Episode 31.5, in that space between falling asleep and falling apart, I heard a soft voice delicately tell me,

"There always seems to be something upsetting you. You should relax more. It's not that there's nothing coming to get you, there's everything coming to get you... but relax anyway, just on principle. Just lie down and look up at the ceiling-a ceiling on which you can see nothing skittering, even though there is something skittering. But forget that. Lie down and look up at the ceiling and breathe with those curiously fragile lungs of yours and remind yourself: Don't worry. Don't worry. All is as it was meant to be. It was meant to be lonely and terrifying and unfair and heaving. Don't worry."

And I was still afraid. But so was the voice on the radio. And my friend who led me there. And my friend with the cat. And my professors. And my parents. And every celebrity I'd ever envied. And every high school bully I'd ever run from. And so were you. And so are you. We're all afraid together. And we can all say that we're afraid together. And then we can move on. Because sickness and death are very easy to do. Our bodies are very good at them and everyone will do them eventually. We should focus less on them and more on things that are hard to do. Like loving someone. Or running in the morning. Or reading challenging books. Or living a life full of self-worth. We should really focus on doing things that are as difficult as possible. Then the easy things will be less worrisome, less regretful, less hard.

So, look at the void. Look at it. Embrace it. And then tell it you'll see it later. You've no time to let fear make you rabid. Really, no time at all.