Death’s Real Shadow Is Regret 🌑

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live." — Marcus Aurelius

I still remember sitting in my car outside a grocery store one night, engine idling, lights buzzing overhead, the air stale with fast food and asphalt.

"Maybe we fear death because deep down, we fear we haven’t truly lived."

I was twenty-seven. "On track," by everyone else’s standards. Good job. Family. A home close to the school. And yet, I stared at the steering wheel like it might offer answers, feeling hollowed out, brittle. Like a stand-in for a real person.

“Tastes like ambition... reheated at 3AM.”

I wasn’t afraid of death then.

I was afraid I’d sleepwalk all the way there.

We’re told to build resumes, chase stability, get serious. Fine. But somewhere in the noise, the real, aching hunger to live… to actually feel alive… gets quiet. Pushed aside. Neutered.

And when you face your mortality, it’s not the number of years that burns the most.

It’s realizing how many of them you spent half-awake.

These small notes arrive quietly,
like morning light through a cracked window.
No noise. Just trut…