Happy New Year! We're All Gonna Die.

I'm feeling particularly mortal this New Year. Perhaps it's because I spent the better part of last week walloped by bronchitis and the flu and hazily wondering if I was dying. Perhaps it's because I'm officially riding the 5-year descent to 40 years old and feeling fragile. Perhaps it's because I've been watching marathons of Six Feet Under. However it came to be, the fact is that death has been on my mind, and is often on my mind, and I can't seem to shake it and no one else around me appears to share my preoccupation.

It came up just the other night at Starbucks with my friend Melanie. I expressed my horror over the recent story of a Northern California family being washed out to sea as they tried to save their dog caught in the undertow. The one surviving daughter watched it all unfold from the shore. "One minute you're playing fetch and the next, your whole family is dead?!" I squawked. The guy behind me reached for his ear buds.

We talked about the Newtown shootings and traded Tragic Death anecdotes: Melanie recalled a time when she was scuba diving and came upon the bloated body of a man in a swimsuit. "His lungs were full of sand. He must've been pulled under and panicked and breathed in. Don't panic; if you inhale, it's over." she advised matter-of-factly. I marveled at how she could dole out survival tips with the lightness of someone offering a cookie recipe. Why didn't she share my sense of impending doom? I told her about the recent death of a friend-of-a-friend; a perfectly typical 32 year-old girl who laid down for a nap with her fiancé and never woke up. Turns out she had a heart defect no one knew about. "So, now I have a ticking bomb in my chest?!" I wailed between desperate gulps of hot chocolate. Melanie shrugged. "When it's your time, it's your time." she sighed.

And that seems to be the general reaction when I hurl my terror at those around me. It appears that I'm the only one tip-toeing through life wondering if someone with road rage is going to pull a gun on me in rush hour traffic or worrying that my desk job makes me vulnerable to fatal blood clots. "It's the Life Cycle." stated one friend. "Everything has a reason." postulated another. "There's not a whole lot we can do about it." dismissed a third.

This New Year I have resolved to meet these Zen masters halfway. I cannot quell my paranoia but I can reduce it some by taking action: That is, telling everyone meaningful to me that I love them and getting my affairs in order. A friend of mine recently lost her father and it was heartbreaking to witness her scramble for months to make sense of his estate when all she wanted to do was look at photos of him and cry. I may not be able to spare my loved ones heartbreak but I can do my best to relieve them of a logistical mess. So this week, while everyone else is choking down a Master Cleanse and registering at 24 Hour Fitness, I am writing my Advanced Health Care Directive and compiling personal records. So far it's strangely empowering. I'm motivated to save more, consolidate accounts, pay off my car. I want my family to be given a gift, not a burden, if I get shot in a shopping mall tomorrow. Of course, if I don't get shot, then I will enjoy financial freedom in this lifetime so either way I emerge as an emotionally healthy, self-sufficient woman, coolly providing for myself and my future! 

That aside, WebMD says I'm flirting with a pulmonary embolism so I need to get these papers notarized, pronto.