Impermanence and the #Forever Trend

I made this on Canva. The shrugging skeleton at the bottom is me. Copyright: Tess Congo’s absurdity.

As a writer, of course I believe that words have tremendous power. I also think there is a lot of beauty in using words to express intentionality.

That said, I do have some beef with the #foreverlove and #foreverhome trend.

Maybe it’s because these hashtags seem to me… at worst — not genuine, and at best — naive. Memento mori… we all die. And even if you look at it from the perspective of spirituality — #foreversoul / #retiredbody… say there’s reincarnation… your soul cycles through other bodies, and finally, you get to the other side expecting to share that time with your #foreverlove… come to find out in your last four lives before that you also did the #foreverlove thing, and now you have five #foreverloves, and that just sounds awkward. Maybe forever as an adjective isn’t really serving your soul in the way you think it is.

And homes… that just seems so dicey. Global warming — fires, mudslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, wars. There’s just like a lot going on on this planet. Do you want to stake your dictionary on a home that might not stand the test of floodwaters? And if it’s forever… does that mean you’re haunting it or whatever is left of it? That sounds like a lot of work to commit to. You don’t even know if you’ll be a good ghost. Maybe you’ll be a tired ghost who just like wants to chill on the patio and casually knock over…