I’m scared, and I hate that. I read Hunter and think that probably, I am invulnerable, immortal. Then I look at my dead father laying on the ski slope and realize that I am more than mortal: my genetics tell me that I could die any day. Fuck! I want to drink and eat and double-shit!
I like my new desk. It overlooks the stairway and the window to outside, birds and all (why the obsession?), overlooking the stairs (I feel a little giddy in my gut (beer rests on the guard rail)).
I am now officially on drugs: Lisonopril, statins. I feel one hundred years old, trapped in the body of someone who wants to be so much younger and not informed. Goddamnit! I am super-pissed at my dad for having these genes, then giving them to me. I feel that I can do what I have been doing and live eight more years (he died at 46) or change and maybe live longer; always, the axe is hanging over my head. (Won’t that shorten my life as well?)
I realize that I am gripping the desk. What the fuck!? How did it come to this? Probably it is because I am a runner and so pay attention to my body and what affects it, and what I put in it. I try to eat well, though at times, I have to “live” as my doctor puts it. Tonight, I am drinking too much and have eaten an hamburger. Remember when hamburgers were the norm, not the exception. It wasn’t a fast-food hamburger, but it wasn’t exactly a super-lean burger either. It was tasty, I can say that, and the salad with it was good too, though a little oniony. (There is the gut clench when I put the beer back on the rail over the stairs.)
And then, I went out and did something that I was meant to do. Taught. Shoed horses. Wrote. Made furniture. Made jewelry (the latest interest). I am a man who loves hobbies and would like nothing better than to succeed at everything while only having to do one thing every now and then. My life is caring for the kids. My passion is? My mom once said something like, You have to live with your choices. I resisted that for many, many moons but here I am, a product of my choices. Yet, still, I can’t imagine myself anywhere else…
I’m looking at the music list, trying to conjure something different, but I listen to music so rarely, that I cannot stop it. Now: Sympathy for the Devil. I am closing my eyes, having another sip…
1 comment:
Bah. Predicting anything via genetics is a fools game. Have you ever looked up what people mean when they say you are genetically predisposed to something?
Often the answer is that you have a 1 in 300 chance of something instead of 1 in 3000.
And the drug companies are going to hype the hell out of that with advertising like "You are TEN TIMES more likely to blah blah blah."
Do you have life insurance? How much do you pay? If you add the premiums up over the next 10 years, does it cover the payout and the salaries of the people who had to spend time selling it to you (plus about a 100% profit since life insurance companies don't exist to break even)?
Trust me, if the answer is no then you should be more worried about living than dieing.
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