Perpetual Near Death Experiences

People who have had a near death experience usually tell you that, in the instant prior to *almost* dying, they were able to see their entire life flash before their eyes. I always found that odd. How can one see an entire lifetime in a matter of seconds?

I think I'm starting to figure it out.

I set my clocks back at 2:00 this morning and realized that it is November 1st. In 17 days I will be 26. I'm not old by any means, but I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that I've been on this Earth for 26 years. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the truth of the matter... that, even though I remember the smell of my hair on my wedding day, even though I remember the look on my father's face the night he had his stroke and I found him lying in the middle of his bedroom and thought he had been shot, even though I remember the taste of the sweat running from my hair and into my mouth on the night I played that awesome show at the Culture Room with my very first band when I was just 14 years old... that it has been YEARS since any of these things occurred.

Am I living in a state of perpetual near death experiences? Is that why these memories still flash before my eyes almost every single day? I always wonder if I'm the only one who relives so many experiences on a daily basis. I suppose that everyone thinks this way. I think it's part of being human. We are always wondering if we're the only ones.

Are we the only ones in the galaxy or are there others just like us? Am I the only one of my friends who will have trouble getting pregnant? Am I the only one who doesn't believe that everything happens for a reason? Am I the only one who likes to put oreo cookies on cheese pizza or barbecue sauce on my tuna fish? Probably not.

It almost seems arrogant to think that, out of the entire universe, I would be the only one to feel so much nostalgia over the past that I have trouble enjoying the present.

I feel as though my life is going by too fast.