I May Die Today Or Next Week Or Next Year Or Never

I think I’m going to die soon. I have nothing backing that prediction other than a hunch and fears I’ve had since I was twelve years old, and yet it’s something that I can’t help but feel to be so true.

I’ve always been a very imaginative person. My grandparents used to have tons of Hot Wheels at their house, and I remember finding ways to play family with them. It was easy to personify miniature car models when you had Cars (2006) as a reference. I would assign roles to each car and personalities, probably names too, though I can’t remember any. Then, when we put the cars away, I would pull the same ones out of the bin the next day and continue the story where it left off. That was my favorite way to play, not just with the Hot Wheels, but with everything. My biggest, most complex, and most memorable narrative came from my stuffed animals. With the help of my brother, I essentially created a sitcom with those fluffy little friends. I’d love to tell the story one day—it was quite fun.

Another often ignored or forgotten benefit of daydreams, not just mine, is the way they are able to tell you about yourself. Like I said, my daydreams are what my heart desires, so what I make up must be what I want. At least, it must partially be that way. I think daydreams could also serve as space to consider possibilities. When you’re preparing for a difficult conversation and are imagining all the different ways it could go down, that’s a daydream, isn’t it? Or when you’re deciding what career you want and you picture yourself living out each option, that’s daydreaming. Another thing daydreams provide is an examination of your subconscious. Think of all the minor details of a daydream. The time of day. The temperature. The clothes you’re wearing. If you’re anything like me, you don’t pay much attention to that stuff unless the daydream is all about, I don’t know, you wearing a ballgown in -10 degrees weather at midnight. Stuff like that may not matter, but your brain still put them there. Why?

The daydreams I remember come from my middle school years and up. There’s a lot of running themes throughout all of my daydreams—mostly concerning identity, love, and general happiness—none of which surprise me. For instance, in my long-term daydreams where I imagine what my life could plausibly look like in the future, I’m always a writer of sorts. That aspect of the daydream doesn’t shock me because I remember adding it in. There’s some stuff, though, that keeps popping up and I never really noticed that they were until I suddenly did. Somewhat recently, I realized that none of my daydreams go past my twenties.

What’s up with that? When I was twelve, twenty seemed ages away, so maybe thinking past that decade seemed too excessive. Twenty was far enough, why go farther? But then I got older. What used to be eight years away became four became one became three months ago. I still don’t imagine my thirties.

I like to make sense of things. It’s partly why I did this whole blog thing in the first place. I like to find meaning in places that don’t seem to have any at first glance. I like to logic my way out of holes, and I label phenomenons that are only really phenomenons because I said so. I apply narrative structure to real life and I constantly see real life within narratives. Naturally, I have given my discovery of my avoidance to the +30 years within my daydreams a name. I call it my fear of 24.

There was no real age where my daydreams suddenly just stopped. To be honest, some of my daydreams did leak into my thirties, but if I were to plot all my daydreams on graph where one of the axes were my age in the dream—don’t ask me what the other axis is—then no doubt there would be a big cluster in my early twenties. I needed a specific number for my phenomenon, though, and 24 just felt right.

Last year was one of the worst in my life. I had classic first-year college issues that came with dorming and class and such; my beloved dog, Dachi, died at 16 ½ years old; my brother’s bearded lizard Iroh suddenly died soon after; I was on edge for months on end, fearing that I’d wake up one day, or get a call, or walk into a room and someone I loved would be dead; I underwent an intense episode of my ever-ongoing identity crisis; what’s-his-face was elected again; and I was nearly the loneliest I had ever been in my entire life. Nearly. Somehow, and I suppose I’m grateful for this now, I’d been lonelier. Sometime amidst the chaos, I realized that the date ended with 24.

I have this bracelet that my mother gave me that has “Your anxiety is lying to you” engraved on the inside of it. I know that’s true most of the time, but I have to be honest, I often think about the implied asterisks in that phrase. I often think about, “Anxiety is meant to protect us from danger,” without the, “and yours is a bit sensitive,” part. I think about how my anxiety lies to me except when it doesn’t. So even though I know—I know that I’m panicking over nothing and that this is an irrational fear, I can’t help but wonder what if it isn’t? What if my emotions know something I don’t and are trying to protect me? And if so, protect me from what? For a bit, I thought that maybe my fear was about 2024. I tried to accept that. As outrageous as it sounded, I wanted to believe that my fear of 24 was some part of me subconsciously and inexplicably knowing that 2024 would suck for me and thus it was a way of telling me to giddy up. Irrational problems, irrational solutions. Once 2025 started and the misfortune continued to follow me well into the new year, my fear never subsided. In actuality, it strengthened. My irrational fear becomes more and more rational with every quick glance at the news.

And now I’m only four years away from turning 24. Tick tock.

There was a moment back in high school when I considered not going to college; this fear had a lot to do with it. If I only had until 24, I didn’t want to spend my limited time at school. Now, I’m happy to be in school. It serves as a nice distraction. It gives me something to do.

This summer didn’t really go the way I planned it to. Well, I didn’t really plan it for starters, but the ideas I had and vague goals I wanted to accomplish never came to be. At first, I was exhausted from school and needed time to recover. Then, I don’t know. Whenever I could have done something productive, I just didn’t do that. I knew I should’ve and felt a tad guilty every time I didn’t. I feel slightly regretful now, but also I just don’t care. I could drop dead before the sun even sets—why does it matter if I clean my room? Don’t need to do laundry if I’ll be a corpse soon. What good is writing when this may be the last time I stare up to the sky? Every day I didn’t die, I just thought that I’d do it all tomorrow. I never did.

It’s hard being apathetic when there’s not much to be pathetic about. Well, not much other than impending doom. I mean, even if I did not turn off my emotions to prevent myself from fearing for my life everyday, I wouldn’t have much else to feel about. My life is at a standstill. The parts I love, I truly and deeply love, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot shake the parts that I hate. I have no reason to leave the house, or get dressed, or move at all. It’s just an added bonus that I might die soon, so none of that matters anyways.

I need school to start soon. I need an excuse to start living again.

I think the truth is my fear of 24 is unfortunately and horrifically rooted in some rationality now. I may die in the next four years. Or I may not. I certainly plan on finding out, which means I must continue to live today and then again tomorrow. Maybe I’ll keep doing this until the end of time. Maybe then I’ll finally clean my room. Maybe I’ll even do it today.