Back in 2011 I went to Washington, DC with my then boyfriend to visit his mother's grave at Arlington National Cemetery.

I was absolutely dumbfounded by the sheer magnitude of this place. I spent hours walking around and just... taking it in.

"These were all people. Every piece of marble out here was a person."

It was an ocean of stones. Just rows as far as the eye could see. It filled me simultaneously with an appreciation for the methodical alignment and respect with which these graves were laid, and a melancholy I had never experienced before.

I stood in this spot for a long time and let the waves wash over me. I let the reality of mortality pull me under as I squinted into the distance and felt the sheer size of the death I was in the company of.

I remember that it was a dreary, misty, cool day. It is my favorite kind of weather and it leant to the atmosphere on a whole new level. It was fitting, but not in a bad way, in a "this is permanent peace" way.

In seeing death so large, in such quantity, and such pristine organization, it made it a lot easier to swallow.

It was beautiful.

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