I woke up this morning a few minutes before 4am and wrote my epitaph. Why? I have no idea, other than the words were there the moment I opened my eyes, tumbling out of nowhere and hovering, simply waiting for me to rearrange them somewhat. I was certainly left wondering why such a thing would occur at this precise moment, but then the subconscious is not always forthcoming with clear explanations.
If my genes are anything to go by, I have another twenty years up my sleeve before I depart this world, so why choose the wee hours to interrupt my slumber with notions of my demise. No idea. None of us know what's around the corner, but I hope I have a bit more living to do before my final farewell.
Maybe it was a wake-up call to make more of my life with what I have left, to make this last season of my time on earth really matter. Matter more to me or more to others? I really don't know. Will I accept the challenge if that's what it is? Now there's a loaded question.
Maybe I simply woke from a dream and that is how my mind processed it, but it's now 4.30am and of course I can't get back to sleep, hence the frenzied scribbling to get the words out of my head. I shouldn't be doing this crazy sort of thing in the middle of the night, but there you have it, don't always have much control over my sleeping patterns and the brain is now ticking over at a great of knots.
Why can't I think of these things at a more convenient time? Probably because in those moments my hands are more occupied with some mundane task like washing up, so my brain is preoccupied elsewhere and not ready to be engaged with such thoughts. Sometimes it takes the still of night when all is quiet for our minds to process the events of the day and the challenges we can't sort out in our waking hours. Maybe when we're at rest we are more open to receive the words we're meant to hear.
Hmmm, will sleep come now?
Well, it's twelve hours later and I can attest to the fact that sleep did not eventuate. The clock interminably ticked over the half hours as I rolled from side to side, by which time no position was comfortable enough to allow me in to the Land of Nod. The early light of dawn intruded around the edges of the blind after more tossing and turning, and by 6am hunger started to set in, but I resisted, and I think it was probably at the moment I was going to give up and get up just before 7am that I finally nodded off for a couple of hours.
In the light of day it is often fascinating to recognise what your night time wanderings are about. Sometimes you wake up wondering 'what on earth was that about,' and I've had many a weird dream in that category, but seeing how your sleeping self helps you direct your waking self to cope in the real world can be an enlightening process.
So, I don't think I'm on the brink of dropping off this mortal coil in the immediate future, but just in case, here's a little something to read at my send-off or etch into my gravestone, not fussed either way.
dust to dust
when it all comes down to it
we all must
cease activity
return to earth
finish off in death
what we started in birth
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