The 43rd year

43 is a fear.

43 is 19 years away

228 months away

6935 days away

166440 hours away

9986400 minutes away

599184000 seconds away

43 is a place I don't want to be, it's something I don't want to feel. 43 is like a train that keeps adding cars and only has one engine and it's so heavy but it keeps pushing and pushing but it can't go anywhere because it's so heavy.

That's exactly how I feel. I feel like I am going and going and going but 19 years are on my back and I can't keep going anymore, but I need to.

It's not necessarily the age, it's the year, it's that I have to be 43 for a whole year, I need to be 43 for a year and I need to survive. The 43rd year never scared me until recently. The 43rd year is the year in which my grandma lost her battle with cancer 2 weeks before I was born.Not only that but the 43rd year is also when my mom died by suicide 2 months before her 44th birthday.

I'm afraid that I won't live to see 43 let alone see 44.

Sometimes I feel like seeing 44 is the issue because they didn't. What if's keep going around like a tornado in my head and it's getting to the point where I think I'm about to land in Oz and never be able to get home.

As scary as it is, it's also making me cherish my life and do things that would make my grandmother proud although I didn't get to meet her. And it makes me want to make my mother proud also, there's a lot of life that neither of them got to enjoy and my goal is to try to do something fun and adventurous every year as well and do something that I can be proud of because it's not just about making them proud it's also about making myself proud and making a life that's worth living to the 44th year.