Portfolio of Hope

I remember the first time I contemplated the prospect of ‘nothingness’,

i.e., the prospect of death–

of finality.

Lying awake in bed at night,

whittling &

worrying

about something so much out of my control-

where we go when we die.

I can’t have been much older than 8 or 9,

and yet, my head was consumed by so much confusion/

so much existential dread,

the thought of my Mum,

Dad,

Sister,

Grandparents,

and…

me

not being here one day absolutely terrifying me.

---

When people talk about ‘looking God in the eye’, I think that was it for me.

That moment-

my mind entering an abyss of nothingness,

the prospect of life (or rather, death), characterised by total desolation,

sheer emptiness filling my head-

it was this moment,

the first time I contemplated what it means to be alive,

(something that I’ve been contemplating ever since, for, like a black hole, once you enter that head space, you can’t turn back),

that I believe I,

‘looked God in the eye...’

---

Now I contemplate why I am alive to a lessening intensity, since, now I am of the realisation that what happens to us when we die/where we go when we die-

it’s all out of our control.

There is either something

or there is nothing.

If it’s the former,

great,

if it’s the latter,

too bad.

When I wake up early enough to see the sun rise, though,

when I see the way the birds move,

I think, surely there must be more?

Surely this mundane, worldly existence isn’t all there is?

Surely not…