I was taking my dogs outside for a walk around 8:30 this evening and I felt that the sky was aglow. It had been pouring rain all day due to a storm that crept through, so I did not expect the sky, dark with rain clouds, to still illuminate the pine trees that framed the rolling hills. I walked towards the front of my house alongside my dogs and was amazed by the sunset I saw peeking through. It was a mesmerizing orangey-pink, as if a peach had burst upon the horizon that was shrouded by dark clouds.
 

I stared at it, completely still as the gales from the upcoming storm blew about me. I stood there, transfixed, much like how the sun remained still while the clouds around it strolled through the sky.
 

While I breathed in storm air, tears began to form in my eyes and a small smile grew on my face as I noticed my breath. 

Just the other day I was panicking about death again. I was thinking about how, regardless of what I do, one day I am going to die, and I won’t remember anything. I will just be dead. And yes, I know that people believe in different afterlives and worlds that you go to after death. I’m not saying they are wrong, because I do hope for that. But the fact that I don’t know for certain scares me most of all. In my mind, I’ll just be dead. This had me wondering why I am even here if one day I won’t have any thoughts, feelings, memories, or being. I won’t even have words.

​

I still feel anxiety about this all the time. These thoughts will never cease, until I cease to exist the day I die.

But that sunset reminded me that I was lucky to see it. That the smallest things repeatedly grace the world, but we so often miss them, so no one enjoys them as much as they should. All of my stress seeped into the Earth beneath me as I stood there and considered staying in that moment for eternity.

​

But I had to go back inside, put the dogs back in the house, and continue my life past this stance. I had to move on from that small moment so I could cherish numerous new ones. 

​

I still am stressed, and afraid. But I feel seen. I feel alive. 

​

The sunset has passed, and the darkness has taken over the sky. Little raindrops plop outside my windows. Though the wind is still rustling the trees’ green leaves, I am still here.

​

Not everything passes, but the best and most important things in life always have an end. They start and then they end, just like life itself.

​

And hopefully a breath was taken along the way.