I'm Dying. I Just Didn't Expect To Care.

Random doodles of the last few days.

Every week this year I see another classmate from high school pop up on Facebook turning 50. 

 FIFTY!

I'm the youngest in my class, maybe the second youngest, (I can't even be the best at that) so I don't turn 50 until late December this year.  This thought has been nagging at me for weeks now because of an observation I made.  One of my classmates, Tom Hill (yea I'm calling you out) who turned 50, commented on Facebook:

"Let the good times "roll" for another half century!"

It was right then and there that my mortality stood up and smacked me in the face.  It was right then, that my analytical mind took over, tied up and gagged my more hopeful, wishful thinking, fantasying, creative mind.  Right then I realized the lunacy, or impracticality of the idea of doubling my age ever again.

Doubling my age may never happen again!!!

Yea, at 25, if the thought even crossed your mind, it was no far stretch to believe or exclaim you could live as many more years as you'd already lived. This kind of forward looking, expectation of doubling your age may continue forever, but dreams and expectations set aside doubling your age actually ends at age 39. Yea, 39, according to the life expectancy tables if you are 39 years old you can expect to live another 39 years. At 38 it is 40, and 40 it is 38 years left.

78 years is your average American males time on earth!

Holly shit! At 50 I'm left with 29 years. Seems the longer you live the more time you get, as in if you make it to 79, you get another 8 years, if you make it to 87 then you earn 5, and at 92 you have 3 and so one.  It seems to be an infinite progression because at 115 you still get another year.  I guess no one has figured out that one birthday that it all ends for anyone.  

I've only got 29 years left!?  

Hell, I've not been able to accomplish what I wanted in 50 years, albeit 20 of those were years I didn't have too much control over, so really the last 30 have been mine to manage.  Okay, so maybe I've got 50 years to build on the 30 I've used thus far, but then again maybe not.  Probably not.  There is no presumption of doubling.  I'm on the short end now.  The down slope.  I'm dying! And I really care that I don't know when, but I understand it is less time than I've lived.  I really don't like this fact!

I always assumed I'd live to 113, more specifically the year 2076.  Why?  Well that is America's 300th anniversary, the Tricentennial.  I figured it would be fun to be the guy that gets interviewed on "The Today Show" as a guy who was there for the Bicentennial and now the Tricentennial.

Realizing I, more likely than not, (see that little glimmer of the hopeful mind) don't have another 50 years, that my time is really uncertain and likely shorter, has put me in a real state of, well despair.  What should I do?  It just doesn't make sense to continue in the rut of a life I've created, but I fear the ruts may be so deep there is no escape.  Old saying, the difference in a rut and a grave is the grave is only 6 feet long (attributed to Garon Allen).  

I can't fully elaborate on all the thoughts I've had recently regarding being on the down hill side of life.  But the common theme is I'm going to be really pissed off if I'm not given my 29 years because, from my perspective, right now, that is in no way, shape or form nearly enough time for me to complete my list of shit I want to do.  My dread is not like the dread someone may have that any day an accident could occur.  It is the dread that is an undeniable fact, I'm going to have to die, and it will be here sooner than later.

The trip is going to come to an end and I don't want it to.  I really want to live forever, just to see what happens, not because I'm afraid of dying.  The actual act of dying doesn't concern me, it is the fact of the end.  Remember I'm a guy that doesn't like to leave a party, how the hell do you expect me to like the idea of leaving life.  I'm always concerned with what I didn't experience or see.

Bottom line, I'm dying, you're dying, it sucks and I really care.