I’m very sorry to hear that. It’s always sad to read posts like this one, as the time goes by, it hits me how I’ll relate to it sooner or later. Apologies for rambling below —<p>I’m much younger (late 20s), don’t have too many worries in life as my parents, albeit older, still alive, my siblings are fine, friends are okay, don’t have that many financial troubles either at this point.<p>That being said, a couple of years ago I got a text about a high school friend of mine passing away after years of fighting cancer. It was one of the weirdest emotions I’ve ever felt in my life, and I couldn’t (still can’t) understand why. I’ve seen my grandparents passing away in front of me, I’ve been to funerals, yet this one hit like a brick. At that point, it would’ve been about 10 years since I’ve talked to that friend of mine, maybe just exchanging some happy birthday messages from time to time. But we were fairly close in middle school, and later in high school as well, just the life drifted us apart, living in different cities and etc. Yet I remember the moment I read the text how he passed away. I remember being on a plane, and my entire mind being completely clouded for a week afterwards.<p>It’s like a sudden realization of how life can be very short for some of us, and you can lose people out of nowhere. I understand I’ve been lucky enough to never experience it until that point of my life, but it really sucked. And it just sucks knowing how it’ll happen more and more, or might even happen to me.<p>Anyways, it’s been about 2 years now, and I’ve lost all of my ambitions wrt my career. Took about 6 months off as well, which made me realize how small and fun the world is. I know for a fact I won’t be able to enjoy it as much in 30 years. But unfortunately I’m not at the point where I can do whatever I want yet.<p>Until then, every work day is just a repeat of things I don’t care about, followed by 10-20km walks to feel something. I wish it wasn’t the case, because I consider myself slightly above average in terms of skills and getting things done. Every morning I wake up thinking if I found just one thing that I could throw my life or at least a couple years at, I would do a decent job. But it’s hard to convince myself that anything matters. Then I remember how people that I hold dear to myself might be gone as well, and it becomes another day of spiralling.<p>Anyways, sorry for Sunday morning trauma dumping, but reading the OP’s story made me reflect on myself for a minute. Thank you.