I used to think that I wanted to be immortal. 

In theory, I could do whatever I wanted and come out unscathed. I could go skydiving without a parachute, or I could get in a barrel and dive into Niagara Falls. 

If you’d have asked me two years ago whether I’d want to be immortal, I might have had a different response. I may have said that it’d be fun or that there’d be a lot of opportunities. 

But, now, there’s almost nothing I would hate more for myself than the idea of living forever. 

Obviously, it’d be pretty cool if I was unable to get hurt, but that’s merely a physical thing. The emotional pain is what then comes into play; it’s nearly impossible to express the hurt associated with the idea of watching the people around you age while you stay the exact same forever. 

I would rather die than live my life forever without the people I love next to me. 

Being immortal, one would have to be callous and cold enough to let go of those they love time and time again. 

You’d love someone and then inevitably lose them. You’d learn to love someone else after that, and then you’d lose them too. It would be a never-ending cycle of loss and isolation that nobody deserves to endure. 

There are no words to express the inevitability of the constant pain of such an arrangement. The Age of Adaline explains it perfectly: Adaline Bowman lives in constant fear of people finding out her secret, so she is changing her identity every decade and leaving behind everybody she loves. She watches her daughter grow while she stays 29 years old through it all. 

I don’t care if I could look young forever. 

I don’t care if I could do whatever reckless things I felt like. 

I don’t care if I could just find new people over the years and have countless different experiences. 

I could not let myself lose my family. 

I could not let myself let go of the people I love the most. 

My friends, family, and experiences: they’re all supposed to expire. 

As dark as it may seem, death is inevitable. Decay is inevitable. 

Time is inevitable. 

So, I’m beyond glad that I can allow nature to take its course. 

I’m glad that I’m not immortal, and I’m glad that I never will be.

I’m glad that I will continue to grow and improve and learn because, in the end, all that really matters is enjoying the time I have left with my favorite people.