Thanatophobia

I walked yesterday morning, enjoying the sunshine, fresh air and the beautiful lake that was choppy from the breeze. She ran toward me on the walking path dressed in black spandex, rail-thin, dripping with sweat, pounding her feet in retreat from an unknown pursuer. She wore a tortured look. Ear pods jammed in her ears. She didn’t seem aware of anything around her. She might as well been running on a treadmill in a dank basement. I see people like her everywhere these days: in restaurants ordering gluten-free, diary-free, grass-fed, free-range, organic, non-GMO whatevers while the server rolls her eyes; in the gym preening in front of the mirror, lifting and grunting, weighing in daily; in the health food store with carts full of expensive supplements with labels that I can’t even pronounce. They are the people who are doing everything they can to stave off the inevitable, thinking they might be the first to outwit death or at least prolong the end or go out on their own terms. They are much younger than I am.

Few people welcome death. It’s hard to look at people who are alone in hospitals or abandoned in nursing homes, who are wracked with pain or disease, people shuffling along using walkers or hunched over in their chairs crying to go home. The universal story about the last chapter is hardly appealing. No wonder thanatophobia—the fear of death—is a real thing for many people.

I’m old. I don’t fear death. I believe that you can try to load the dice—like the young people that I see—but I know that it’s still a crapshoot. I don’t relish the unknown way that I might die, but I accept that my turn will come, and no matter when, it will likely feel too soon.

I don’t experience thanatophobia, but I do suffer from a related phobia that has yet been given a name to my knowledge. There’s the acronym FOMO—fear of missing out—and a legit phobia called koinophobia, the fear of living an ordinary life. I wrestled with coining a cute name for my phobia until I ran out of clever tries. I’ll call my fear FONLF—fear of not living fully. Not exactly catchy, but it sums up what I’m feeling.

I have so much that I still want to do. Outlines for several books sit in my document folder. I have quilting projects that haven’t been touched in years. Two canvases are under-painted and have been dry forever, waiting for some detail. I have jewelry supplies neatly organized in drawers and bins, also waiting for inspiration.

I have so much I’d like to learn. I’ve barely scratched the surface on the craft of writing. I’d like to make audiobooks of my novels and my memoir. I’ve always wanted to learn conversational Italian and enough Spanish that I could stop pantomiming with my cleaning ladies. I’d love to learn to make cream puffs with pastry crème filling like I used to get in the bakeries back home.

There are so many places I’d still like to visit again—Charleston and Savannah, the Outer Banks, the Oregon and Maine coasts and the San Juan Islands. There are places I’d like to see for the first time like Alaska—the only state I haven’t visited—Jackson Hole, Durango and Taos.

All those things and places are bucket list material, but don’t get to the essence of my phobia. I thought about what Dwayne Dyer preaches, “Don’t die with the music inside you.” My phobia includes, but goes beyond, what I can accumulate in life experiences before I die.

This week I published an essay on Brevity, an online platform for writers. I wrote about teaching my Life Stories classes to senior adults and explained the value in writing candidly. I shared that I always mine my memories for lessons. Another writer, Camilla Sanderson (see her blog here) commented on my essay and said that she likes to highlight the gifts she shares in her memoir writing. She said, “I also love to look to where I can learn, but recently I’ve also begun to look for the gifts I’ve given – and here I’m talking about non-material gifts: the support, appreciation, love, encouragement, kindness, compassion.” Her comment led me to new thinking.

At 2 AM when I asked myself what really feels undone, I answered with a question, “Have I given enough?” I don’t limit that question to material things either. I am a good listener, empathetic, thoughtful, funny, creative—a lineup of blessings. Overcoming my personal phobia of FONLF doesn’t require a project plan and goals. All it requires is a shift in attitude. What if every time I am faced with a situation, I ask myself, “What is needed here? What can I give that would matter?”

I think I may have discovered the Fountain of Youth that the younger generation is pursuing. I hope that it doesn’t take them decades to find it like it did me.