Something about passing 65 has stirred up a macabre fascination and fear of death in me. I suppose it's because more people over 65 die than under 65. (I don't know if that is statistically valid so don't quote me.) But with each day I grow more aware that at this point in my life time is a gift. I find myself skimming the obituaries...I don't read them but I do glance at the ages of the deceased and so many are in their 60's. I think I should stop looking at that page or maybe even cancel my subscription to avoid further temptation. But I can't...won't. I have become a version of Woody Allen...not in a perverse way (I don't lust after my stepson, for instance) but in a way that causes me to make jokes and constant references to the amount of time I have left.
This blog entry, for example, is not the first time I have alluded to death, and wasting, and rotting. Maybe not in those terms....but post 65 one can't help but marvel as things in and on the body just don't work the way - or look the way- or respond the way they used to. I have bags under my eyes. Three months ago I did not have these bags. They are not bags in the same way Coach or Louis Vuitton are bags. They are unsightly pockets of loose skin that collect liquid while I sleep. Puffy things that I spent ten minutes trying to drain in the morning and then attempt to arrange the saggy skin that remains in such a way that they are less noticeable. Wearing glasses helps hide them...who knew? Even Yoga causes issues. Not that long ago I could do a cat/cow and push myself up into downward dog in one swift move. Now it's in two moves and they aren't pretty.
So I thought about my obsession a lot last week and pledged to stomp on all thoughts of dying. I went to the library and checked out Diane Keaton's book, "Let's just say it wasn't pretty". I love her and I believed that she would make me smile and distract me from my death dirge. That did not happen. This book is almost totally about her own struggle with aging...(and some other insights as well)...but it was as if I'd written it. It was me talking. I found some comfort in knowing I was not alone....but she is best friends with Woody Allen and he is obsessed with a fear of death. Water finds its own level for real. Still, I wish Diane and I were friends cause then I'd be able to say all this crap out loud with someone.
It doesn't help that every day a new study discovers something else we're doing wrong that is killing us. Sugar is killing us (but I intend to die with chocolate icing on my lips). Carbs are killing us but you'll have to pry the pasta and freshly baked Italian bread from my cold dead hands.We're supposed to eat more fatty fish but the mercury in the fish is killing us (and so is the price of fish). Sitting is killing us but watching TV standing up just isn't right . Neither is being a therapist who stands instead of sits while people pour out their pain and anguish. Vegetables might save us but they give me gas and good ones are hard to find when you live in a state that is covered in ice 6 months of the year.
Butter and eggs were recently vindicated from their former roles as killers...but I never ever stopped eating them. (You have to put butter on the freshly baked Italian bread). Oh well.
Next week I leave for Florida. Before i go I will have struggled through the agonizing wait to see if my son is going to jail or prison.I will have the answer to why my friends Amy's bone marrow has stopped making platelets. I will have attended my good friends' husbands funeral. And I will have rewritten the codicil to my will in case I die on the trip.
My friends do not seem to share my obsession. They appear to be taking their losses in stride and toss them off with an "Oh well".
I hate those bitches.
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