"Fast Forward"
Time flies when you're having life.
We've had a lot of good times,
but I seem to remember the bad ones more clearly.
It seems to go more slowly when we're younger.
Now I get up, watch a couple of reruns, and the day is over.
Misty remembers every detail of every experience we've ever had.
How does she do that? It's weird.
When she tells me about some of our adventures,
it's like a bedtime story... fictional..
Luckily, a lot of our life is recorded in photographs and in our music.
It still kinda seems like somebody else.
I'm enclosing comparison pictures here.
Before (1966) and After (2008).
(I sure could fake an innocent look in those days.)
I can't help staring at the young me in the picture with some kind of morbid curiosity,
I comparing him the the present me.
The older me wins a few games, but not the series.
I must admit I sort of envy that young guy.
I know he's in for a lot of hard knocks, bizarre adventures, and some tragedy,
but he has plenty of time on his side.
I'm not planning on croaking right away or anything,
but the young people do have more life expectancy.
That doesn't thrill me at this point.
I've been inches from violent death more than once,
and in desperate situations that seemed to have no way out,
and yet somehow I survived.
I met Misty only by the wildest string of coincidences,
and she has given me me hope and direction.
I'm beginning to think that I was meant to come this far
down this improbable path.
I was in the ER a couple of weeks ago,
and the nurse asked me if I wanted "heroic measures" to keep me alive.
I said "You betcha. NOBODY pulls the plug on me. I got things to do."
(I'm fine now, by the way.)
Anyway...
you spend a bunch of decades learning stuff,
and when you just about get it all right...time's up.
That's not good planning.
I object to this system.
Who do you complain to?
Is there an 800 number?
Copyright © April 7, 2008 Jack Blanchard. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission.
