Life Burns at 40

'Lachrymae' by Lord Leighton Frederic, 1894-95

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They say life begins at 40, which is wildly ironic given that’s the age I realised, with every passing second, that I am at the uncontrollable mercy of death.

I never understood what that meant when I was young and cared deeply about things that never really mattered. I understood it all too well the night I watched my dreams for the next forty years go up in flames in one devastating, life-altering second.

When I looked up, all I could see were God and the Devil staring back at me, waiting for my next move.

Permanence, it turns out, is a con. We all think we understand this, but cognition is nothing like affect.

Your brain tricks you into believing you have control.

That you have a say.

That’s why we make plans.

Why we dream about the future.

Together.

I’ve taken my fair share of blows. Some from cruelty. Most from other people’s wounds. Some from death itself. They carved wounds in me that made me wound others — the inevitable domino effect set in motion the moment you take your first breath.

I survived.

I grew.

I healed.

I changed.

I evolved in the alchemical trauma mill.

I thought that was the point.

I assumed grief would arrive after some kind of formal notification.

The truth has now been soldered into my veins: an irreversible assault on my very being. Its weight presses into me even in sleep.

There is no peace after the death of your soulmate. And yet, paradoxically, what remains looks something like peace — if peace is the overwhelming sound of silence you can hear even in the loudest room, the echo of nothingness inside you.

With that truth came the realisation that grief doesn’t end with one catastrophic loss; it only expands with time. The storms fanned by grief’s wings do not disperse.

All you can do is try not to drown in its waters until it’s your turn — and then someone who loves you will be left trying not to drown in your wreckage.

I know I have to live as long as possible for my son. I cannot check out of the matrix until it’s my time. I must stay. And suffer. And keep learning how excruciating it feels to live.

I have wanted to die many times in my life — seriously considered it, on a handful of occasions.

But then I found someone who belonged to me, and to whom I belonged.

I found someone to live for. Not instead of my son — but differently. Loving a child teaches you how to let go. Loving a soulmate teaches you how to hold on.

With a child, your job is to teach them how to live without you. Your soulmate is the person you’re supposed to grow old with until your last breath.

And now he’s there, and I’m here.

I’ve never approached life without the incessant search for meaning — the hours spent talking about magic, possibilities, the unseen threads binding everything together. Staring into his eyes and seeing the whole damn universe.

That was real magic.

Back then we thought we were profound outlier intellectuals with our wonderment and speculation. Now I see it was just a parlour game — a way to pass the time, a way to convince ourselves we could solve the Rubik’s cube of existence.

I think that was more my pursuit than his. He always accepted life for what it was:

Impermanent. Unflinching. Fragile.

The Buddha was right: life is suffering.

But life is also love. And you cannot have one without the other. Our naïve mistake was believing we could.

The meaning of life — when you finally accept that death can take you or anyone you love at any time — is simply to live.

Every moment.

That’s what he did.

And that’s what he would tell me to do.

But the horror that he is never coming back — that I am here, alone, without him — follows me everywhere.

Trying to steal my soul.