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Dec. 27th, 2014 07:34 amfb is particularly insipid this time of year. Year in review memes were lowered even more by the auto-generated year in review. I'm thrilled many of my friends were horrified by auto-posts of their exes, dead pets and relatives, and things they were not being miserable with over the holiday until an algorithm changed their mood.
I'm dying. We're all dying, but I'm at the age where my mortality is more obvious. There is no searching for lines in the mirror; my face scrunches like a raisin when I smile. Fillings in my mouth are all decades old, and the dentists talk about teeth and gums as having a lifespan shorter than mine. My surgery for the labral tear really drives this home - they talk about how long I might postpone arthritis or a replaced hip...not maybe, not if - when. I get a physical and they talk about lifestyle for comfort, longevity, postponing the pains and disability of age. I see now doctors and nurses, older than me, reference lifespan in a knowing way - they can see death, their own.
On the positive side, I suppose, is that I've achieved goals you're supposed to. I have college degrees - really too many, and they're paid for. Check. I have houses, check. My retirement account after twentyfuckingyears of saving the max allowed appears reasonably likely to be able to support me and someone else in my waning years, that in about 20 years. 20 more years of working.
I mean I still drink and dance, I still fluff up like a rooster for an unnecessary confrontation once in a while, I'm competitive with 20 somethings in the gym as opposed to doing one of those weird old-man workouts I see so many of. My dating life is...active, alive (not perfect, my flaws showing, but I can't deny alive - very alive).
7:15 and the sky just lit up to shine pink on the clouds half covering the blue sky. Gray above me with colors on the horizon. Sort of the opposite of my life!
Kids - that shit makes me feel old. Many say I'm too old for kids, I should have been more adult younger, and settled down. I was too stupid too long, wasn't ready to settle down, and now whether I would have been able to be a good parent or partner at a younger age will forever be a theory. Now there are challenged, MANY, and serious drawbacks. My friends' kids are walking, talking, and in some cases young adults. Most of my friends are a good 10 years younger than me. Sadly I seem to want kids (though I readily admit I'm too naive about children, too inexperienced and unexposed, to rationally make that decision). Making that decision, taking those actions, I am faced with the issue that I can absolutely support (healthy) kids financially, but I will fucking die on them.
I just went through a saved email folder to run into the exchanges from my dad's horrible wife about my dad's...looking at them you can see the descent and how each step of the way we didn't know - we didn't know he was dying. Each step was the hope and goal of returning to life. I have to have a directive ready for the off-chance I die in surgery (highly unlikely, but always a Joan Rivers possibility). I have a will penned by my own hand, but not put together by a lawyer.
Old. That forever timespan? It's not forever anymore. Death is a prediction with variation but life now has a foreseeable end. Each stage of death is laid out in a series of maybes. I can pick apart each part of my body and talk about it's range of compromise over time. Even the good parts, like retirement, show an end product. In your 20s you feel immortal and the few people you barely know that died still echo; in your 30s more joined the list and you joke about first gray hairs. In your 40s you know many who died, have lost numerous relatives, have lost people close to you rather than classmates, have been through the divorce and remarry of countless friends, and all the medical stuff is now talking about timespans in which you can see the destination.
It doesn't make me sad. It's just what is.
I'm dying. We're all dying, but I'm at the age where my mortality is more obvious. There is no searching for lines in the mirror; my face scrunches like a raisin when I smile. Fillings in my mouth are all decades old, and the dentists talk about teeth and gums as having a lifespan shorter than mine. My surgery for the labral tear really drives this home - they talk about how long I might postpone arthritis or a replaced hip...not maybe, not if - when. I get a physical and they talk about lifestyle for comfort, longevity, postponing the pains and disability of age. I see now doctors and nurses, older than me, reference lifespan in a knowing way - they can see death, their own.
On the positive side, I suppose, is that I've achieved goals you're supposed to. I have college degrees - really too many, and they're paid for. Check. I have houses, check. My retirement account after twentyfuckingyears of saving the max allowed appears reasonably likely to be able to support me and someone else in my waning years, that in about 20 years. 20 more years of working.
I mean I still drink and dance, I still fluff up like a rooster for an unnecessary confrontation once in a while, I'm competitive with 20 somethings in the gym as opposed to doing one of those weird old-man workouts I see so many of. My dating life is...active, alive (not perfect, my flaws showing, but I can't deny alive - very alive).
7:15 and the sky just lit up to shine pink on the clouds half covering the blue sky. Gray above me with colors on the horizon. Sort of the opposite of my life!
Kids - that shit makes me feel old. Many say I'm too old for kids, I should have been more adult younger, and settled down. I was too stupid too long, wasn't ready to settle down, and now whether I would have been able to be a good parent or partner at a younger age will forever be a theory. Now there are challenged, MANY, and serious drawbacks. My friends' kids are walking, talking, and in some cases young adults. Most of my friends are a good 10 years younger than me. Sadly I seem to want kids (though I readily admit I'm too naive about children, too inexperienced and unexposed, to rationally make that decision). Making that decision, taking those actions, I am faced with the issue that I can absolutely support (healthy) kids financially, but I will fucking die on them.
I just went through a saved email folder to run into the exchanges from my dad's horrible wife about my dad's...looking at them you can see the descent and how each step of the way we didn't know - we didn't know he was dying. Each step was the hope and goal of returning to life. I have to have a directive ready for the off-chance I die in surgery (highly unlikely, but always a Joan Rivers possibility). I have a will penned by my own hand, but not put together by a lawyer.
Old. That forever timespan? It's not forever anymore. Death is a prediction with variation but life now has a foreseeable end. Each stage of death is laid out in a series of maybes. I can pick apart each part of my body and talk about it's range of compromise over time. Even the good parts, like retirement, show an end product. In your 20s you feel immortal and the few people you barely know that died still echo; in your 30s more joined the list and you joke about first gray hairs. In your 40s you know many who died, have lost numerous relatives, have lost people close to you rather than classmates, have been through the divorce and remarry of countless friends, and all the medical stuff is now talking about timespans in which you can see the destination.
It doesn't make me sad. It's just what is.
