The Answer's at the End

So, as I was saying....Actually, it's been over - or nearly - 4 years since I've 'said' anything in a blog post. I used to write quite a bit once the Lord invented blogging. Then, for whatever reason, I stopped. No, I don't know why I stopped writing and I'm not sure I ever will. Certainly not in this first blog post anyway. Life has been strange. There's a shocker I'm sure no one can relate to.  I've had some major life changes in the past four plus years...and the hits keep coming.

When I was younger, the problems were different - I won't say less significant because that's demeaning to the younger me. They were just as serious to me then as these far more serious problems are to me now. Still, there is a difference, of course. It's one thing to worry about the girlfriend's abrupt departure and another to worry about whether or not you'll die [leaving behind a wife and two kids] on the table when they're attempting to remove two tumors on your thyroid that have inexplicably wrapped themselves around your carotid artery. Still, at the time, that girl's departure was just as painful. Everything is relative, right? That is, relative to our experience up to that time.

Up to this point in time, though, I hope I've seen near the worst. I say 'near' because I'm realistic enough to know that the worst is yet to come. If I'm to be honest with myself, I have more good days behind me than I do ahead of me.  That's not pessimistic - it's reality. Odds are, I have about another 30 or so years left to live, presuming the cells that generated those tumors don't get creative and put tumors somewhere from which they can't be removed. Over those next 30 years, odds are I'll have at least one heart attack, multiple battles with my prostate, more aches and pains [physical and mental], and very few days where I sit back and go, 'Life is good'.  To be fair, it's not as though I've done a whole hell of a lot of that ['Life is good', that is] over the last 46+ years. Just not in my nature, I'm afraid. Always a worrier. Never much of an 'enjoyer'.

Still, at least I've gotten to the point where I no longer blame myself for that.  It's my chemical makeup and it is what it is. It can be managed, not 'fixed'. Like the Yankees' starting pitching. So, there are some things that are better at 46 than at 16. Not many, but a few. Being more at peace with myself and who I am [and who I am not, despite my best efforts and/or dreams] is one of them. There's a great ad-lib that John Lennon does at the end a song he recorded [but never finished] in 1980 called 'Borrowed Time'.  It goes like this:

Oh yes, it all seemed so bloody easy then
Ya' know, like
What to wear? Very serious-like, ya' know
How am I gonna get rid of the pimples?
Does she really love me?
All that crap.
But now I don't bother about that shit no more
I KNOW she loves me.
All I gotta bother about
Is standin' up

I loved those lines when I was 16 but never fully understood them until recently. So, all is not gloom and doom. Well, it's gloom with an awareness of doom, maybe. But at least I have the self-realization to know that - rather than beat myself for 'bad' decisions - the secret o'life is: you make the best decision you can based on the information you have AT THE TIME.

And, then, the answer's at the end.