No More Prime Numbers / Death Becomes Us

so, october is kind of a big deal.  it IS my birthday month (YAAAY, a prime number no longer!), i've been beyond hyped about finally getting a new tattoo, and i'm even more excited that the weather is (slowly) relaxing its heated death-grip on world!! i'll be able to start taking Wall-E out for walks again!  poor guy has been holding it in all summer.

now, when i first started thinking of what this non-fascinating things this entry would cover, i thought i'd have a good whine about how the months of november and december were going to suck.  i'll have to start paying back my student loans in november, and our lease is up in december, so we'll have to find a new place to live.  the combination of the two had slowly started to stress me out.

and then, two people died.  one was a coworker/manager who i've known for a long while, and the other was the mother of another coworker.  death doesn't freak me out or anything.  quite the opposite.  i find a sort of peace in what death entails.  there's something beautiful in the knowledge that the only absolute truth, the only guarantee, is death.

the funny thing is...it's not the actual death, but rather the reactions of everyone else that get me thinking about my own mortality.  i've been wasting my time worrying about what kind of a place i'll live in or who will live around me.  i've been wasting my time wishing i made more money, when i've never been the kind of person to give second thought to things like that, before.

and i'm ashamed of myself, honestly.  i know better than to let myself worry about things as absurd as apartments or loans or bills.  i mean, i know they're important and i know that i need a place to live and that i need to payback what's put me through school... but they're still absurd.  they're not what give me my happiness.  they're not the things that i find real meaning in.  i have someone whom i love wholeheartedly, and he loves me in return.  i am surrounded by people, physically and not.  i have an abundance of "things" and i honestly do not have a list of wants or needs.

above all, i am alive.  it is my responsibility to recognize the absurd and live experientially.  all other things are simply insubstantial and meaningless byproducts.  the poop of life, if you will.  :)

i'm not happy about these aforementioned people/friends/coworkers, but i'm also not saddened by their deaths.  there were so many people that cried and smiled and told stories... that's all anyone could ever ask for.  stories are signs of life.

i'm grateful that these deaths that have reminded me of what's important, and it is meaning with which i will fill my tattoo.

<3

PS - the head is totally not penis-shaped.  everybody wins!