How do you deal with life now that you are an atheist? (With a little of my life)

[Aroura]

I have a very difficult time with this still.  I wish I had some advice for you.  In all honesty, the thought frequently keeps me awake at night.  I think maybe it just takes time to emotionally process the realization, and perhaps it takes longer for some than for others.

Same here.  I have quite a lot of anxiety because of it.  I think barely a day goes by that I don't think about it.  It actually got quite a bit worse for me recently right after my mother had a stroke.  She survived, but it was like mortality suddenly became very, very REAL.  Now I feel a bit obsessed with it, but I'm doing my best to process it all, (enjoying life, making our own meaning, remembering loved ones gives them a certain kind of immortality, etc) but it's a much slower and more painful process than belief in god and the afterlife was.  

I feel like, at 40+, I've only just now started to gain some wisdom and understand a few things, and that I will never ever really understand or accept it all. I'll probably struggle with it until the day I die.