Death + Adulthood
Adulthood is interesting. As a kid, teenager, young adult, I had all these ideas of what it will be like when I was older. How I would deal with things. Money I’d have. Friendships I will have. Stuff I'd do after work. Who I would hang out with. What I’d do with my time. How I would cope with things. It felt like this far fetched idea that I would just know I would be able to handle things better. More adult like. With more poise. Once I’d get a bit older I’d think now is not that time yet, I keep delaying it in my head, like I will be like that in a year, in a year, in a year. But things still keep happening. Situations still arise. I’d deal with them as I saw fit. I’d screw up. I’d learn from those screw ups. I will do better the next time and so on and so forth.
Then there is this mystical time where I realized, those thoughts from when I was young, yeah those were all wrong. The way I have created those things I wanted//wished for//assumed would happen are through action. It’s not some magical thing that just happens one day. It’s the culmination of all the things that continue to happen throughout life and we just get better at them. More experience shapes the way we do things. We make choices every day and those choices determine how we live our life.
One thing I have on my mind is death. How I deal with death when it comes up. Reactions. The things I say to folks when I find out someone close in their life has died. A culmination of the things I have learned in 37 years. The things I might type in a text message that I then erase because I don’t think that sentiment would make me feel better if one of my best friends just died. The things I have learned throughout intense trial and error when my own close friends go through losing a child and she shares countless things about what to say and not say. Why a sentiment that is seemingly plain and commonplace to say is, in fact, a shitty thing to say that might send them reeling for a few hours or worse, a week. It makes me think who came up with some of this shit that is considered a commonplace reaction to finding out someone died. Why do we say those things and how do we get better?
I remember the first time I felt like I was experiencing loss in my adult life. I found out one of my mentors//colleagues at CBRE had terminal cancer. It was really tough. I realized there would be no more advice from him. No more emails. No more pep talks. His kids were losing their father. His kids wouldn’t get him in their adult life. His wife was losing her partner. He was no longer here.
He was the first person that gave me real advice about dealing with corporate nonsense. Don’t let them see you sweat, Tanya. He was the only person in my corporate job that went out of his way to find my wedding registry and send me a gift with a congratulations when he found out I was getting married. He supported me in my growth as a fresh into corporate project coordinator. When he left CBRE because his health was declining, I stayed in touch through email. I would sporadically email him to see how things were going. Then one day I got a phone call from someone at work saying he had passed away. I never met Dave in person. He was a Director in Virginia and I never needed to go to the project site, so we didn’t get to meet in real life even once. It sucked. He is someone I still think of as one of my first mentors.
That happened about 13 years ago. I think I deal with death differently now. I have evolved. I still say the wrong thing sometimes. Or maybe a lot of times. I have learned that showing up in the bad is far more important than showing up in the good. I try to go to funerals or wakes when I can. I remember every high school friend that showed up to my grandpa’s funeral 20+ years ago. I try harder to give words of encouragement or support when death is in my inbox or text messages. I have gotten really used to using the phrase “aw, that sucks” cause a lot of other sentiments suck way more.
