Fuck the world.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard that phrase.
I was 8 years old and my dad bellowed it through tears after a phone call he received.
His sister just got diagnosed with breast cancer and it was already too late to do anything about it.
The doctors said she had a year to live.
He always thought she would be around.
She was his baby sister after all.
The one his parents always asked him to protect when they passed.
He couldn’t protect her from this, no one could.
He could do one thing though, give her the best year of her life.
He was going to make sure she forgot about the future she would never see and only focus on that specific moment in time.
She never forgot she was about to pass but at a certain point, she was definitely less afraid of losing time on Earth than we were of losing time with her.
My dad never brought it up but eventually I asked, “why don’t you cry about things like we do?”
She chuckled and said, “Oh I did, especially at first but then I realized this is a gift. Not a lot of people know when they’re going to leave this earth, for most it’s out of nowhere.”
We didn’t realize this but her biggest fear was gone and without it, she did things her old fearful self would never do.
She jumped out of airplanes.
She swam in the ocean.
She traveled around the world with the money she had saved up over the years.
She no longer ran from death, she danced with life.
Eventually the cancer broke her down to the point she became bedridden but that year she made sure she didn’t have anything left on her bucket list.
There was no remorse, just peace.
The last piece of advice she ever gave me was, “Don’t do what I did, enjoy every year of your life, not just the last.”
I carried that mantra throughout my life.
Life without risk was a life unlived.
Every big risk I have ever taken was with her in mind.
Even my riskiest move, the golden parachute, was named after the risks she took.
If it wasn’t for the advice she gave me, I might have never even gone to the Olympics let alone win them.
Everything I’ve done so far in life was with the natural fear of death we all have but now that I have the gift she had, now that I know when it happens thanks to you Deathnote, I’m going to become unstoppable.
I have beaten you multiple times when I’ve been afraid of the end you can bring.
Now that you don’t have any dominion over me, how do you have a chance?
How does anyone?
This next year, I have nothing to be afraid of.
Between now and Red Snow, I’m going to do what my dad wanted to do all those years ago.
I’m going to fuck the world.
I’m going to make it hurt.
For everyone else, it ends with you.
For me, it starts.