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For the past 6 years, I've been a casual user of Gaia. My first few years I was really active and I had a group of people I talked to, but we don't talk much anymore.

Around 2010, I remember sitting in my living room, talking to Elaine on Gaia. I had just graduated from high school and I remember I used to look around the forums to see what was out there. I found out we had a Life Issues forum and I've been visiting it ever since.

I don't ever make topics there; if I did, most of the advice I would get would be awful. Usually, I just go through some problems and see if there's anything I can give advice on. I rarely ever post. When I do, it's because I either have first hand experience with the problem or the problem is very explicit and I can see the answer, or what I think the best answer is anyway.

A lot of the time, I won't have an answer to their problem. At least, not an answer I'm comfortable enough giving. The range of problems vary, right. There'll be stuff about death and drugs and pregnancy. A lot of stuff I haven't ever experienced and I don't know how to advise. So, I just don't.

So, I almost never post. But I do go there all the time.

Outside of Gaia, I've been thinking about death and the future. I've been thinking about how I could die and not accomplish anything that I set out to do. My small dreams include creating a meaningful video game and having a child. I think about dying without having children and it depresses me a whole lot. It's not like I'm out to have kids right now, but I hate to imagine myself dying tomorrow and not doing any of the things I wanted to.

It's kind of scary, being able to die and all. The more I think about it the scarier it is. I'm thinking it was brought on because of the Astronomy class I'm taking, but that's a different thought.

I started to think about why dying before having children bothered me. Kids are a ways down the road, and I kind of hate toddlers.

When I imagine having a child, I imagine all the things I'll be able to teach them, about being a good person and how to do things, like how my father taught me how to shoot.

I figured out that my thing about dying before having kids is about being able to help or teach someone something.

And that's why I go to the Life Issues all the time. I want, so badly, to help someone. I want to give them advice that will genuinely help them.

I'm not some wise man, obviously there are a lot of problems on LI that I don't know how to solve. But I like to think I've learned a few things and I know how to handle certain situations. And I want to use the things that I've learned to help someone else.

A few years ago, when I was going through the old thread that I used to hang out in, I somehow came upon a link to an LI thread. The poster was a friend of mine, someone who I talked to in the thread.

The LI thread was about this problem he was having with a girl. She was giving him mixed signals and he was really confused and torn up about it. I could faintly remember reading it the first time. I didn't know how to help him.

When I was looking back on it, I knew immediately what the problem was. The girl was acting just like an ex-girlfriend I had. I knew what was happening.

The only problem was the issue was years old. I didn't know how to help when it happened, and when I knew how to help, it was too late.

It was upsetting. I wished so much that I could have helped him. It's almost like a regret, like I could have done something, even though I really couldn't have.

I remember hoping, and I still hope, that things turned out well. That it didn't turn out as crummy as it did for me. And the issue is dead and gone, but it's still unresolved in me, in my head.