When There is No Day After

 

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I've recently rewatched "The Day After", and then watched the BBC's "Threads" for the first time.
Two 80's television movies, two warnings of the tragedies of nuclear war.

Admittedly, my hubris goes so far as to convince me that I could survive just about any disaster. However, this confidence is not foolish enough to extend to nuclear war. If I were to survive the initial blast, how could I ever hope to survive radiation poisoning?
Apparently, Prussian Blue is a medication that removes radiation from the body. So, if I were lucky enough to be provided this pill, I suppose I'd have a better chance of survival. But nuclear winter sounds like the most brutal of all.
How would food be grown? How far would the dust clouds spread? Would they cover the whole world? Would I be allowed in unaffected countries?

Despite the low likelihood of being subjected to a nuclear war, the anxiety of the future still weighs on me. If not nuclear war, what will be our demise? Even without war, we are still plagued by old age, disease, and corporate pollution.

Although I wasn't even born when "The Day After" had aired in 1983, my parents were quite alive at that time. They're the reason I had been raised on a large amount of 70's and 80's media. I believe it was my father who had told me of the movie, leading me to pirate it as a teenager.
Despite not being my time period, I experience heart throbbing nostalgia for the 80's. It grows as we move further in time.
The people actually from that time are growing older faster, and I've known several who have already died. Their memories, their stories, the underground cultures of their time that they shared with me, will probably die with me someday. Somehow, it feels suffocating to see the younger generation.
Will they learn what I have? Will they carry on that which I will leave behind?
Maybe my anxiety is absurd; I know full well that children can think for themselves. Maybe I'm only envying their youth.
How could I ever expect to do better that which may not even exist beyond our perceptions?

I've been having strange lesions in my nose and mouth. Like eczema. I suspect mouth cancer to be in my future.
I can't see a doctor. Even if I could, what's the point? What's the point in trying so hard in a world that is set for destruction? How can I find the will, when there will be no one who'll still be here after me? I wish everyone the best, but I cannot pretend that they are anything more than an indiscernable stranger's face to me.

I had often joined my father in blaming his mother, my grandmother, for not pursuing more treatment for her cancer. But, I think I understand now.

I'm trying to remember to let go.

I'm going to die.

I'm leaving behind no legacy of flesh and blood.

I'm going to be forgotten.

And that's all okay. Because everyone will die, and no trace will be left behind, because the sun will someday swallow our planet (unless you're an immortal, in that case, hit me up and turn me immortal too).

I'm lucky enough to know what I do and be who I am, and to know the people I do.

I'm lucky to exist in this moment, and I'm going to continue to fill every moment with what makes me feel

Human,

Divine,

Alive.