Mostly Dead

I heard from a friend today that one of his friends is, well, mostly dead. That may sound harsh but it's a fact. The person is in a coma and has been for 3 weeks, there's no hope of recovery. It got me thinking and it wasn't pleasant. First of all, I'm a pretty optimistic person overall. Life is great, a veritable bowl of cherries. I don't act old (or not VERY old anyway). I try to be youthful enough without being dopey about it.

All that said I can't help but stare down a host of missed opportunities. Oh yeah, I've heard it all before, "you're still young yet" and "you've got plenty of time to still pursue your dreams" and on and on. Okay folks, slap yourselves because as lovely as it would be to think those things there comes a time when you need to know you're options are gettin' pretty limited. Yes they are.

Look, here's a fact folks, I'm never gonna be an Olympic athlete. Yup we were all just treated to those Summer games in London and those athletes were young. Yeah there were a few true old-timers on some of the teams but they were pretty rare and no doubt they'd been in the game for quite some time. Yeah, I got no hope of that. I realize that even in my prime I would've never been considered an athlete but maybe if I knew then what I know now I would've tried a bit harder. I would've found something and really thrown myself into it. Those gymnasts were amazing, they flew through the air defying gravity. That would've been nice to pursue…maybe.

And then there's all the other loves of my life, I had wanted to be a food scientist, not gonna happen. I loved radio like you can't even imagine and I was young at a time when radio was fresh and exciting, yup that's off the table now. Writing, yup, loved that when I was young, still love it but let's face it, even if I did get something out there now it wouldn't be like I'd be staring down a lifetime career as a writer, I'd be spending my "declining years" as a writer. Okay, that'd be pretty cool but it would still be a last ditch effort.

I have an acquaintance just finishing up the long process of becoming an architect, it hasn't been easy and it has taken a long time. Apparently there is a lot of work that goes into becoming an architect; you have to invest a lot of time and obviously a substantial amount of money to get to the point that you are finally an architect and making the big bucks. She's gutted out the whole process, the internships with low or no pay, the exams, etc. What an accomplishment and every time I see her, despite all the effort she has put in she's always so happy that she did it, she fulfilled an awesome goal and she went after something that really spoke to her. I wonder if she'll regret something ELSE when she reaches my age or if she'll continue on the fearless path she's started on.

I'm seeing some Facebook posts about a friend of several of my friends, I didn't know this person but she seems to have been a very talented photographer and it's clear that she died and from the looks of her photos she certainly died far too young. I haven't yet found out how but it does seem sudden. How sad to for her to be cut-off from life that way. She was beautiful, her photos look wonderful and her friends are all shocked and saddened, one friend wrote a truly lovely poem about her. But there it was…death.

It's hard to think about, but it's all around us all the time. Certainly as we get older it rears its ugly head more frequently but that makes it worse not easier. It taps you on the shoulder and kinda reminds you that you're also in that line somewhere.

This isn't intended to be morose it really isn't. Just real, it's just real. My friend happens to be on the radio and he talked about this openly today. He brought up the concept of death…hell, not the concept he brought up the REALITY of death and put it out there. A bold move, in our overly polite society death just isn't talked about but there it was on the radio. He played some stuff, some sad, some poignant and some that just plain put it out there.

I do want a do-over. I really do. I'd be braver and less afraid of failure. That was my thing when I was young enough to have the expanse of time stretching out ahead of me like a highway across the mid-West, I was scared of failing, scared of making a fool of myself, scared of SOMETHING. Damn that really sucks but it is what it is. I'm still optimistic, I'm happy to have what I have but there's just so much out there that I never bothered to go for.

Well, in all of this I'm wishing that friend of a friend a peaceful journey from this world, he's lingered 3 weeks now between life and death and that can't be very fun either so a toast to The Brick for a peacefully journey ahead.