I had just turned forty the first time I ever wrote a word around here, and all of a sudden fifty-eight lies a few short days away.
And it all just passed by so fast.
I do the math: my Dad lived to 75, his parents to 60 and 63: I look like him, I’m tall like he was, I got their genes, I just know it.
So few years left, and they say the time passes quicker the shorter it gets, so the next however many will pass even faster.
Down to twenty or less, hopefully not too many less, but let’s not kid ourselves, too many pints, too many smokes, the damage done, I’d take twenty if you guaranteed it right now, no questions asked, I’d take twenty in a hearbeat, but it’s probably going to be less than that.
What a life, though. What a time to be alive. I lived like a hit man for a lot of it. Always managed to work, hold down a decent job, with good health insurance and stuff. Never made very much money, but did some things I loved and believed in. Worked in lefty politics for a good number of years, took a few years off when my first wife died, then went to work in higher ed.
Sometimes, of late, here in these final years, I lie awake and wonder if I did enough. Wonder if I helped enough. Wonder if I had some sort of talent that I wasted.
But I was a good husband to two lovely women, and a decent father to four children who are just getting their feet under them and making their way into this dismal world we’ve left them. They’re all smart and funny and they all got big hearts, and when I see those hearts in action, I think, well maybe I accomplished something.
I could go tomorrow and from a purely selfish perspective, I’d be alright with that.
I’ve had a hell of a time these last fifty-seven years. Lived better than almost anyone who has ever lived on this planet for the last ten thousand years, or however long people been living ‘round here.
Most people don’t even get one, but I got two loves of my life: two unusual, strikingly beautiful — both inside and out — women somehow fell in love with me and found me the most interesting man in the world.
Magical children. Amazing friends.
No one could ever ask for more.
Tomorrow my sister and my brother and their families will come for dinner. I’ll make steak tacos. My twelve year old, a baking savant, will make me a carrot cake. We’ll eat, and drink red wine, and toast the start of another journey around the sun.
Maybe my last, who knows.
It was ridiculous when Lauren died at 38, but it wouldn’t be ridiculous for myself, or for anyone else, to die at 58.
Time’s running out, and I’m sorry to see it go. Sorry to see myself go. I’d live another hundred, were such things possible, and up to me.
But they’re not.
I’ll assume I got tomorrow.
Steak tacos and carrot cake and the presence of the people I love the most, and of the people who love me the most.
After that, well, who knows.
Who knows.