Ten

So here's where I am at.

When I turned fifty I recognized that the next ten years would fly by. And I would be 60. This did not please me. Then it happened. And my fucking eyes were open the whole time.

When I turned sixty I recognized that the next ten years would fly by even faster. And I would be 70. This really did not please me. In my feeble brain, 70 marked a line of demarcation. 60 wasn't old, 70 was. No matter - it's about to happen. Five months and counting. And my eyes are wide open; the ultimate nightmare.

I am afraid. I feel trapped. I feel very close to hopeless. Because the next ten years are it. No fucking chance that I'll be jumping on trampolines at the age of 80. So if I ever want to have fun, if I ever want to "succeed", if I ever want to feel good about myself - it has to happen in the next ten years. Period. After that I'll be eating applesauce, drooling, wearing a diaper, and riding one of those fucking motorized chairs up and down the stairs.

My body is already starting to fail me in a big way.

Everything hurts. Which reminds me of a t-shirt I have to buy from one of my favorite websites - the shirt says: "Everything hurts and I'm dying." I thinks it's funny, you think it's morbid - doesn't matter - it is true.

Anyway, everything hurts. Knees, back, fingers, hips. I can't run anymore. Shit, I can't even walk fast. Climbing stairs is climbing Everest. When I sit too long I am suddenly 110 years old. The first few steps I take after getting up make me look like the old man character Tim Conway played on the Carol Burnett show.

I'm stooped over taking tiny decrepit old man steps at a pace a caterpiller could outpace. And now that my knee is fucked up again I got me a bit of a limp, so I list to port.

I get out of breath easily. And I am only 7 months and 5 days into my seventieth year on this planet.You get the point. What the hell kind of shape will I be in in 2033?

I don't even want to think about it.

What's worse is the psychological aspect. Christ, man - I have been sleepwalking through someone else's life. Filled with hatred and remorse. Disbelief. But when death comes it's coming after my life. The one I never lived.

It's a tough deal. My entire life has boiled down to the next ten. If I even fucking live that long. There's been a lot of evidence swirling around me recently providing incontrovertible truth that it is all a fucking crap shoot. It could be over before I reach the end of the next sentence.

Pissed away 70 - 10 left to go. That's a losing proposition.

Apparently I did not take it all seriously enough.