Voice of Reason

Here I am again, 2017,  and it's time to put last year's blog into a book for my children and their children. I've done this every year since 2010, so this will be my sixth blog book and my last. Wait! It appears my pants are on fy-eeer, so I might be lying about this being my last book. But then again, maybe I'm telling the truth. The reason I say it's my last book is because I don't think I'm going to see the Times Square ball drop on January 1, 2018, thus eliminating any possibility of another rambling, aging baby-boomer book.

It's not unusual for me to think I could meet my maker any day now. Thoughts about my passing began in my forties, continued into my fifties, heightened in my sixties, and now that I'm in my seventies--although just barely in my seventies, and by today's calculations I'm really only forty-one--my demise feels imminent. And if it were to happen, people would probably say, "Well, she lived a good long life, so it's okay that she's gone." No! No! No! That's so wrong. I'm really forty-one, folks. Way too young to pass over to the other side. I have a lot of living to do: There's children's weddings, high school and college graduations, and grand babies to pamper. I can't leave now. But the truth is now is when it happens. The seventies and eighties are usually when it happens. Oh, I don't wanna go yet; my house is a mess.

I'm okay living in squalor--well, it's not squalor, just exceedingly cluttered and dirty--but once I leave the house for any reason--walking down the mountain to the mailbox, going to the recycle center a mile away or on a long trip--the house has to have the "appearance" of clean and tidy. (Don't look under the bed.) What if I died before I got back home? What would people think of me postmortem if they saw dust on the furniture, dishes in the sink, fingerprints on the refrigerator, and toothpaste spit on the mirror? Oh, the shame. A voice of reason might say, "Well, if you're dead, who cares?" It's obvious that the voice of reason has not thought its rationale through. "I care!" I say back to the voice. "I care because... because... because... ."

I have my reasons for thinking Heaven has me on its waiting list and my name is getting closer and closer to the top. I really do have reasons, but my memory is not so good these days, and I can't find them right now. But just because I can't find my reasons for thinking I will be kicking the bucket any time now, that doesn't keep me from thinking this spot on my leg is beastomycosis, a disease that normally affects hedge hogs, but when a human has it--and I think I do--it's a slow and painful death. Voice of reason again sticks its nose into my business of dying and says, "The probability of you having beastomycosis is one in sixteen trillion." Shocked by rationale's lack of empathy, I say, "Tell that to the one person out of sixteen trillion who died from beastomycosis." 

A pain in my left arm? Heart Attack. Constipation? Colon cancer. Tingling in my right big toe? Stroke. "I think I may be dying," I say to the voice and the voice calmly replies, "We are all dying. It's part of life. But the probability of you dying today is one in three million." I think about what the voice said and relax, but then I see spots in my vision. Brain Tumor. Quick! Hurry! Where is the vacuum cleaner? There's lint on the carpet. Oh, the shame.

Tomorrow will be my last post before I turn my year-long blog into a book. That is, of course, if I'm still here tomorrow.


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Note to Denise: If I’m not here tomorrow, look in the bottom drawer of my desk for the file folder labeled “All I Have to Be is Good, Part 2.” Instructions for publishing my book are enclosed. Thank you Denise and it was nice knowin’ ya.