Look, you ever just know something? I mean, when you're in the middle of maybe turning a corner and you decide to stop, because you think someone's coming the other way around the corner; and then BAM sure enough, someone comes around the corner? Or maybe you're playing the shell game with that street crook down on 21st and Nun; you pick a cup just because you know, and bam; you beat the house? Surely, there are some things, sometimes, that each of us all know. We just know 'em. The thing that I 'just know', is that I'm going to live a long damn life. I mean, 90+ years. I've always known this, ever since I was a kid. I can't explain it, but since I've got a blog, I'm gonna try. It's not that I'm trying to live long, mind you. I'd just as soon die at 50. That's the perfect age to die. You're peaking in your career, your kids are probably all old enough that they can take care of themselves, and you'll never have to worry about mortgages/car loans/credit card/ loan sharks (for those of us that have them, and I mean the bone-breaking, bat-carrying kind - not the kind who are employed by CitiBank). At fifty, it's all fucking downhill. Your kids grow into these fucked up individuals who do bad shit and end up in jail, or whatever. You eventually have to retire, either from stress or complete burnout; and you spend your days (in a best-case scenario) spending all the money you worked for 30 years to save up. I mean, that is assuming that you don't have to spend it on your fucked up kids, since they're in rehab or on welfare and supporting sixteen of your lazy peice-of-shit grandchildren. Hell, I wish I could check out early. I love checking out early, I do it whenever possible. It's the best way to beat the rush and avoid having to wait in line.

But I'll never get that. Not to say, on the flipside, that I'd ever try and tank the play. I'm not stupid enough to think myself invincible. I'm not going to run around playing in traffic and shit just becuase I know I've got a long, boring, monotonous, probably depressing road ahead of me. That would be stupid, and I'd probably be rewarded with a long, boring, monotonous, probably depressing road as a vegetable. I'd survive playing in traffic, but only as one of those people who gets their diapers changed by the same sociopathic live-in nurse who molests them on a regular basis. Nope, there's no fucking with fate, I'm way too risk-averse for that shit.

So I just take my lumps. I suppose the good thing about knowing that I'll live a long life is that I know I've got time to mess around. I've got time to make mistakes, to run up some debt, to fuck up my kids and then hopefully unfuck them up. I mean, time is a wonderful thing for people like me who have good intentions but fuck up a lot. The whole cycle also really teaches us (the long-lifers) that loved ones truly are the only thing worth saving. Becuase when you fuck up, which you will, they're the only people who will know that you didn't mean it and you're just a dumb bastard who's a slow learner.

Of course, it also means I'll die alone. My friends will all be gone, my parents, brothers, sisters, God forbid a child of mine will have passed. But really, the thing that sucks; is that the old lady will probably be gone by then too. I hate being alone. As much as people annoy the fuck out of me, I enjoy fucking with them. And the people who I truly do appreciate are more dear to me than I'd ever care to explain. Friends, even acquaintances. For people like me, who don't make friends easily, the ones we do make are very important. And one day I'll be completely alone.

I'll be one hundred fucking billion years old, literally draped across some hospital bed, hoooked up to a ventilator and eating my breakfast through an IV. The nurses will have pumped me up with so many stimulants, so that I can stay alive long enough for whatever's left of my extended family to see me off, that I won't even understand what's happening. I'll be so confused and incoherent that I won't even be able to form the thought that I'm confused and incoherent, and if I could, I 'd be so confused and incoherent that I wouldn't even understand myself. I would literally be a something. Laid out there, breathing, blinking, but not thinking. And then, so weak that I barely exist, I'll dry up like a drop of water on a summer sidewalk. The difference between the last bit of life being there and the complete absence of life will be so small, and come so fluidly, that those watching won't even be able to pinpoint when it actually happened.

Posted by: shank at 06:02 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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