One day, all that will be left of me are these words.

My website will run its annual course, and the internet will eat me out of ethernet existence all because I didn’t pay my dues. I won’t have ever been anything more than a faded Facebook page, a languished LinkedIn, and a scattered social media presence that was nothing more than bits and bytes here and there.

I wonder who will waste time trying to find or revisit me. Will anyone crave the sound of my voice and venture to find a video only of me? Will my words capture the meaning I was trying to share? Or will I be misinterpreted, misunderstood, or misrepresented for the future’s sake?

Today I type and think of a day without me. I hope that somewhere, someone finds solace in knowing another may have felt similarly. Another shared deeply. Another tried. But I know that one day soon, these tapped-out texts could be no more than strung-together syllables. That all the thought and energy poured into this page will last no longer than the final breath I exhale.

I’ve been the person to look for those I’ve lost in all the things they’ve shared. I know the residue of them that resides online is nothing. They do not exist in what they left behind. They were more full of life, dynamic dimensions, immeasurably immense and now they are diluted. They are diminished in death, leaving us with no true semblance of them.

After me, I will be forgotten by most. I will fade behind the background of the voices and memes that turn the wheel of the World Wide Web. I will be a page with no pause. Unpublished, unfollowed, uninfluencing. After me comes nothing. No wisdom, no warnings, no words, no more. I am only here today, this second, and when tomorrow comes, none of me will matter.

The only thing that truly matters is that the words of today ripple across the present. You may not mean much for the future, but you can choose to make good of today. It’s all I have the power or will to control because I know virtually nothing waits to erase us all.