I just finished rewatching The Good Place for the first time since it ended. The end hit me way harder this time. It’s only a few years later, but I was under 40 then and am over 40 now.
I think… I still felt immortal just a few years ago, and now I’m wrestling with mortality.
I don’t want to be like Jason, Chidi, or Eleanor. I identify with Eleanor most overall, largely because her dynamic with Chidi is uncannily like mine with Daniel.
But I can’t imagine wanting to walk through that door, not ever in this actual life. But someday essentially I will.
I’d rather be like Tahani and just keep finding new things to do forever. New things to learn. New things to be. If it really were eternal, I guess I could imagine someday running out of things to pivot to… maybe… maybe… but mostly not.
But we don’t get to be like Tahani. We don’t get a choice. We all walk through the door, without it waiting for us to be ready. And I can’t imagine ever being ready.
What I can picture? Being so tired some day of physical maladies that I’m relieved to not have to deal with them anymore, and that’s a sad seeming reason for wanting to move on to… well… nothing.
I can’t tell how much my fear of death has been magnified by crossing the arbitrary line of turning 40 vs. spending the last nearly four years terrified of covid. There were days in 2020 where all day my brain chanted to me, “I don’t want to die.”
My whole bubble’s biggest fear for the longest time was my mom getting covid, and that finally happened this fall. And she’s fine. But my body reacted physically with grief like she was dying while I couldn’t see her for three weeks. It was awful.