A lot of people complain about the brooding vampire trope. They say it's been overdone, misused, overused, and rehashed so many times that it really means nothing anymore. I'm guessing that a lot of people who say this are younger. I think when I was younger, I tended to have less patience for the brooding vampire as well. After all, who wouldn't want to be young and beautiful forever? Who wouldn't want to be strong and fast and able to have nothing but years ahead of them? How could this bring you down?
As I age, however, I am beginning to understand why sadness would be more the state of the immortal. Oh, perhaps not for someone born to immortality. Creatures who were born to live forever probably have a deeply different outlook on the process. For us born with the perspective of a mortal, however, we tend to to grieve our losses and mourn what has left us. It is a fundamental part of who we are. If a person born with a mortal's sense of finality was to suddenly face an endless lifetime, what would they have except a constant state of mourning?
I find that as I age, I grieve more. I don't just mourn for those who have died, though I do that as well. This is less tangible in some ways, though so completely consuming in others. I mourn for the loss of what we once had. Do you remember what it was like to go into a video game arcade? All the noise? All the flickering lights? The pulse of excitement as you exchanged your money for tokens? How grown up did you feel, as a 11 or 12 year old, when you were dropped off there while your parents shopped? How exciting was it to purchase your own drinks and your own snacks? To be surrounded by people who were closer to your age?
Or maybe you were one of those kids who hung out at the skating rink. There was something so romantic and thrilling about the rink. Perhaps it was the round and round of the skaters, the feeling of being graceful as you glided past someone. Maybe it was the way the lights would lower and spotlights flash around as the music played. Now personally, I was never one for skating. I never really got the hang of it. That didn't stop me from going to the rink though. It was a great place to get snacks and to hang with friends. And of course, it was the only place in my town where a gumball machine existed that spit out neon Duran Duran stickers! Ahh, even thinking about that thrills me.
See, that's the thing. Nothing thrills me like that anymore. Sure, I get excited. I can be happy for the release of a book or the idea of an upcoming event. I am happy when people have parties or babies or movie nights. But none of it is as thrilling as those flashing lights or those stickers. Nothing quickens my pulse like that. Even being in love never did that. Is it something that perhaps only a tween can experience?
Every day, more things from my life fade away. Trends change. Businesses go out. Places once full of life fall into empty modern ruins. As you age, you often find yourself craving a candy that hasn't existed for 20 years. You long for the feel of a jacket that hasn't been made since you were in 8th grade. You feel a loss for the music show on the radio that only came on during Saturday evening and lasted until the wee hours of the night. Now it's all gone and more often than not, you're left with replacements that feel hallow and artificial.
We age as these things pass and at some point, we realize that we're like them, vessels once filled with excitement and flashing lights and thrilling surprises....that are now becoming more empty and more ruined with each year. Death stops becoming so scary and seems more like a welcome comfort, a way to run from all of this change. Some people might say that it's the change we fear, and sometimes it is. More often than not though, it's not the change so much as just the fact that the changes offer us nothing good. We feel no excitement about them. We can offer them no love.
An endless lifetime with nothing left that thrills you would be horrible. It would truly be a fate worse than death. What could be more horrible than spending day after day longing for the sounds of arcade machines and knowing that you will never again find a treasure trove of neon stickers?
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