Just Another Box on The Mantel

I met my grandfather (on my mother's side) a few months ago for the first time. He lives with us now, he doesn't talk much. Why? He's on the mantel in a box among photos and stained glass and vases. As I mentioned before I never met my grandfather. He died about a year before I was born so I rely mostly on what my relatives tell me. Does this bother me? Maybe a little but that's not why I'm writing this. So why am I? Let me tell you.
These last few months I've been living in constant fear, thanks to my anxiety, but I'm slowly starting to realize that if I live the rest of my life in fear some day I'll just be another name and another box on someone's mantel. Well hopefully not just anyone's but you get my point. There are so many people on this earth and so few of them get remembered. They kind of addressed this in The Fault in Our Stars.  This whole theme of oblivion is inevitable and we might as well accept it.
But what if I don't want to accept it? What if I don't want to just be another grave or another box? What if I want to do something, something big and inspiring and helpful?
This whole thought of oblivion is kind of intimidating. I'm not scared of death, I'm scared of dying. Dying without finishing everything. But, going back to TFIOS, you end life in the middle of a sentence. You don't, typically, get to chose when and how you die but you do get to chose what you do with your life. And I'm tired of spending mine in fear, fear of my anxiety, fear of failure, fear of not being the best, so many fears I just want to let go.
So maybe I won't change the world, but if I can change someone's world, some girl scout I led or some fellow classmate then, technically, I accomplished my goal.
I learned a trick today I thought I'd share with you. Basically you create a place in your mind you can go that's just for you. It could be a beach, a room, a garden. Mine happens to be a library. I could go into detail but that would go on for pages. But the main focus is a blue velvet chair that I sit in and just relax. I don't have to worry about my anxiety, I don't have to worry about people, I don't have to worry.
I hope you can do the same, it's kind of nice having a place all my own that no one can get to, no one can see what I'm doing or mess with my books. It's a good thing to have, something to fall back on. Even though I'm still young I wish I had learned some of these things years ago, but I'm so glad to learn them now and can use them for the rest of my life.



~MG