I do a lot of thinking.

Yeah, I know...profound. Seriously though. Since I go through depressive periods, I find myself thinking about what I'll leave behind a lot. It's a very morbid thought, but I guess now that I've hit about mid life, I can't help but think that way. I see the wrinkles in my face more. I think about how much longer I have with my parents. I wonder how long it'll be before I get cancer. I find myself wondering if this is normal for someone who is my age or if it's just me. Is it because I'm still single at 37? Does my loneliness naturally lead to these kinds of thoughts? These are things I think about.

My grandfather died of cancer many years before I was born. I think about what that must have been like. My grandmother was single for the rest of her life. I understand that kind of loneliness, and it's not fun. I'm sorry she had to experience that. My mother had breast cancer. I have polycystic kidneys, which means I am more susceptible to brain aneurisms. I'm on artificial hormones, which increases my cancer risk and my risk of stroke. These are things I think about.

I also think about a movie I saw back in 2013 called the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It doesn't have a high tomato meter rating but audiences liked it. I think about it because it's very similar to my experience in a lot of ways. Walter zones out a lot and imagines fantastical scenes happening where he is far more interesting and heroic than his normal, every day life. He has a dating profile that he has trouble filling out because he believes he hasn't done anything of note or gone anywhere interesting. Then he just lets go and lets the adventure take over. I relate to Walter. While many people look at my life and think I'm very interesting and have a lot going on, I certainly don't feel that way. I have a very vivid imagination that puts me in all sorts of fantastical places. My adventure doesn't seem to have happened yet though. These are things I think about.

I watch a lot of science content, and I was interested to learn about Stephen Hawking's last publication in which he tries to limit the multiverse theory with a framework that would make the concept testable. I imagine that an infinite multiverse yields infinite combinations. These infinite combinations means there are infinite mes out there with infinite variability. This means there's a version of me that's a bio female from birth. There's a version of me that's a bio male that's not trans. There's a trans version of me that's straight, a version that's bi, a version that's pan, poly, and everything in between. There's a version of me that somehow stopped aging at 25 and never dies. There's a version of me just like that, but was born in the 1600s and has lived 418 years already. There's a version of me where I'm a sentient tree. No, not like Groot or an ent of some kind. Just a regular old tree somewhere that can think about stuff.

There's a version of me where I have super powers, and no one else ever does in that universe. There's a version of me where I'm an optimist. There's a version of me where I've never experienced anxiety or depression before. There's a version of me where I've been abducted by aliens and live the rest of my life in space. There's a version of me that died in a nuclear holocaust. A version of me followed my musical dreams, but failed and ended up homeless. Another version of me did the same, but became a superstar. Another version of me is so depressed that drugs are her only escape. Another is an alcoholic. Another embraced religion instead of rejecting it, like I did. Another that embraced it to the point of fanatacism. I'm particularly fond of the version of me that discovers how to make the exotic matter needed to power the Alcubierre warp drive and the other version of me that followed my original dreams of being an aeronautical engineer that becomes an astronaut. Or the one that didn't let fear control her and took the offer she had to get a career started as an editor in Hollywood.

And of course...there's the version of me that's doing the exact same thing I am right now... Thinking the same thoughts and feeling the same feelings. If the multiverse is truly infinite, that means there are infinite copies of me doing this exact thing right now. These are things I think about.

What I notice is that I rarely think about the version of me that's married, the version of me that's always happy, or the version of me that's really self confident. I don't think about the version of me that's not lonely or depressed. I don't think about the version of me that's insecure in relationships. I don't think about the version of me that everyone else very likely sees in this reality's version of me: the person they all seem to like.

These are things I should think about.