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A Personal Look at Mortality
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A Personal Look at Mortality As you can see by my caption next to this text, I'm 59 years old. My age, and the effect it's having on me is what has led to my writing this post. You may think it a bit odd, but I can truthfully say that turning 59 has affected me more than any other birthday I've had in my life. Even when I turned 21, it was an anti-climax. Here in Texas, after the legal voting age had been reduced from 21 to 18, the state, like many others at the time, reduced the age of majority to 18 as well, which meant it was legal for a person to buy booze once they reached the age of 18. When I turned 21, this measure had passed the year before or thereabouts, so even turning 21 was anticlimactic. I think it was the Feds who threatened to cut off federal highway funds to the states unless they bumped up the legal drinking limit back up to 21 that put an end to that brief party, but it was in effect long enough to spoil my coming of age. Turning 30 was a milestone I didn't relish, but it came and went and I adjusted. Being in my 30s wasn't so bad -- I still had a whole lifetime ahead of me. Then when I turned 40, I was too busy being a new dad (for the second time) and with life to give it much thought. Yeah, I was kind of troubled by then because I hadn't accomplished nearly what I'd wanted to, but still, 40 wasn't so old. And then the big Five-Zero came. A half century. At least by then I'd fulfilled a couple of goals. I'd finally completed much of my educational goals in my 40s -- took me way too long to finally get my BA, but then I followed it up pretty quickly with my Masters, and I felt good about that, at least. I took some solace in the fact that, in the US, still a minority of people have succeeded in completing at least a Bachelor's degree, and only a very small fraction of people have successfully completed any graduate studies. So I was finally a member of a somewhat elite minority. Heh, my MA and a couple of buck won't even get me a cup of coffee at a local Starbucks, so even though it does provide me with a sense of accomplishment and the diploma looks pretty hanging on my wall, it hasn't amounted to much. As each year has ticked off since I've turned 50, I've tried not to think about birthdays anymore. I mean, once a person turns 50 they're more or less officially middle-aged, aren't they? At my local Kroger, I'm even eligible for a senior-citizen discount! Geez, according to Kroger, I'm not even middle-aged anymore. I'm a senior-fucking-citizen! I've had a couple of scares over the past few years. In 2008, when I went to see my doctor for my annual physical, at the conclusion of it, my doc asked me how I felt. I decided to be honest. I told him that I didn't feel too good, that I had no energy anymore, just wanted to sleep all the time, and I got out of breath from even the lightest exercise. He immediately scheduled me to see a cardiologist. His promptness undoubtedly saved my life. Turns out I had an 80% blockage in two major arteries in my heart -- the Lateral Anterior Descending (LAD for short) and the Cicumflex, two of the biggest arteries in the heart. The LAD is also known as the "widowmaker" because if it gets blocked with a clot, the result is almost always death. That's what took Tim Russert out. And a couple of other people I'd known personally. My cardiologist installed two stints to deal with the blockages, and did an angioplasty on the Circ. Unfortunately, the angioplasty didn't hold, but I didn't know that at the time. Last year, I suffered a rather severe attack of vertigo, and wound up in the emergency room with an erratic heartbeat. I was admitted to the hospital and my cardiologist repaired the failed angioplasty by implanting two more stints. So I've got four stints in my ticker now, but at least I'm back up to close to 100% blood flow, and I gotta admit that, from a circulatory standpoint at least, I feel pretty good. And then, this year, 59 came. Why did it have such a profound effect on me? Simple, because 60 was just one year away. Only less than 8 months away now. And here I am, still feeling in many ways more like I'm 19 than 59, and I'm faced with soon being among the elderly. But wait, I tell myself, is a person really elderly at the age of 60? Geez, I hope not. I still have way too many things I want to do with the rest of my life. I haven't even begun to tick off items on my own bucket list yet. I guess some of my growing sense of mortality comes from the fact that I'm almost 10 years older now than my father was when he died. But I tell myself that he did all the wrong things. He had a weak heart to begin with, having suffered from rheumatic fever as a , and then he went on to be a heavy smoker, he drank way too much, and he ate all the wrong foods. When he finally succumbed, it really wasn't much of a surprise to the family. So I've lived ten more years of life than my father had, yet, strangely I still feel like a when I think back about my dad. I guess that isn't particularly abnormal, though. It's all a matter of perspective. But these days, the ticking of the clock is definitely louder. Even though I'm loathe to admit it, some things just aren't as easy as they once used to be. I've been battling my weight ever since my late 20s and even though I've been able to take off much of it occasionally, it always seems to come back on. I've never been a fan of exercise, and I'm still not, but one of the things that I've now committed myself to is getting myself back into shape, and staying there, before it really is too late. My bones creak more now than they used to, I've got a bad knee and ankle, and a bad back. I've had the bum ankle ever since I was about 12, the knee was courtesy of the US Army, and the back injury I suffered when I was about 26, so I've had to deal with all these issues for most of my life. And as I get older, they get more problematic, so all the more reason why I need to institute a good exercise regimen and stick to it. I tell myself that, if I do, then just maybe when I'm staring 70 in the face, I'll still feel pretty good. God, I hope so. I realize this site is full of mostly younger folks, and if you're one of them, just take a word from the wise -- keep on top of your health, because if you ever lose it, you may never be able to get it back. In this regard, I do feel lucky because at least I haven't fallen into that black hole yet. And I don't intend to. Not for a long time. Still, I'm faced with the inescapable fact that the majority of my life is behind me now and that if I really and truly plan on amounting to something, well, time's a wastin' and I'd better get busy! This isn't to say that I haven't done much in my life -- I've actually done a lot. I've experienced more than most people, I'll wager. But it's more a case of being a jack-of-all trades in too many ways. And I still have so many and varied interests that it is still difficult for me to put all my focus into a single direction. There are just too many things that I want to do yet, or continue to improve myself at. So what's the solution? Time management, I tell myself!  For starters, I really should spend less time hanging out on the 'net, less time with my nose buried in books, and more time achieving more of my goals. *sigh* But I do like it here, and I'm pretty thoroughly addicted to reading, so it isn't as easy as it may seem.Okay, I've blathered on for long enough. Time to go do something constructive. |
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THat's what I wanna know,
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Hah! That's something that I meant to mention, but guess what? I forgot! Sheesh. I'm fond of the old Yiddish expression: Too soon old, too late smart. And that other one: Youth is wasted on the young.
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