I’ll be 55 in May. Aging thing starts to sink in, although AARP membership and its accompanying cheaper pancakes at IHOP deals began five years ago.
Life’s full of disappointments, and ego destruction isn’t bad. Selfish narcissists are the ones causing harm, and unfortunately we’re surrounded by them, often in disguise. You think we’d be used to life by this age, or would’ve learned its lessons, but we still find new ones all the time.
I think one of the best lessons is that the trash will take itself out: don’t pour out from your soul’s vessel into another when you’re not getting anything poured back in return, or you’ll empty your life’s energetic cup, and you need that energy. Keep company with those in life who provide the greatest gift of unconditional love.
Anyway, I’ve had some scary medical shit going on with both severe unrelenting migraines and creepy heart events. Not a good look for someone who’s lost family members at early ages from stroke and heart attack, so although I’m the opposite of a hypochondriac and generally don’t go to the doctor for much, I had to relent and go in. I’d ignored incidents of severe chest pain as “maybe just some sort of bad heartburn” when I’ve never had heartburn except when pregnant (my four “kids” range from 18-30, so that’s been awhile).
Several of the chest pain incidents have been pretty scary and, and the never-ending migraines have led to a bilateral temporal headache that’s now daily. The doctor was concerned. I said I wasn’t thrilled about feeling like something was wrong and that’s when he spat the medical cliche: “Father Time is undefeated.” I said, “Those are some Grim Reaper diagnostics there, doc. No problem, I’ll just swing by the cemetery on my way home and pick out a headstone.”
He wanted to rule out everything from minor heart attack to aneurysm and brain tumor (since I’m already on daily and monthly migraine preventative medications that’re failing) and sent me to the neurologist and cardiologist for work-ups. I’m currently in the middle of them: MRI, heart monitor, EKG, stress test, etc.
It makes me feel like I’m 85 instead of 55. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but I’m also not the one touting the record of the Father Time hourglass-logo NFL team.
It did make me think. We all go around chirping about how “life is short.” What would we have done differently, what would we do tomorrow if we knew we didn’t have much time left. Did we do all the things we wanted to do, how would we spend our remaining time if we had a choice. I don’t know how I would answer those questions, and sometimes the answers aren’t up to us anyway.
The only real answer to life perhaps is to leave the past in the past where it belongs, leave the future in the future since we don’t know what’s going to happen there, and hold the present in our hands like the gift it is.