Last night I traversed through dark places covered with barren land. I sifted through the memories of those that we have loved and lost, hacking away the thick weeds that strangle-held the places we are wont to go to. The laptop was my machete and my tool of exorcism. I think. The memories still haunt me now that I've started it.

I have a picture on my desk of three cousins arm in arm at a wedding for a family member several years ago. The person next to me in the picture died a year ago. I sat there last night in front of my laptop, excited by a new story developing when I felt the spirit move me towards me dead cousin. I stormed through his subconscious into places I had no place being. I left me behind in favor of him, as usually happens with a story that grabs me, and I started seeing his death day through his own eyes post-mortem. This doesn't sit well with me but I don't want to stop either. It may heal me it may not. Somehow it feels insulting to his memory, like I should leave the dead alone.

Death scares me, scares me into a dark corner where I'm even light can't get it. That's why I don't let myself think about it. Having no dogmatic religion to subscribe to I also have no clear conception of the after-life. Increasingly, however, I have developed the theory that when you die your spirit does not die, so when you are buried it is only a body, a housing tool that served it's purpose. Celebrate the life lived at a funeral and cry because no longer do you get to experience that person physically in your life. Consequently, stop worrying about heaven and judgments and start worrying about all the time you wasted worrying. Then get it together and go experience something. Make yourself a better person by making other people better. Let it all matter while we're HERE, not for whatever is supposed to come afterward. Too much time is lost in debating. What did John Lennon say? "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." At least someone got it right.