Mortality Has Reared It's Ugly Head

This year I've been feeling my mortality for the first time, and not because I turned forty-seven yesterday. Earlier in the year my wife had a blood clot on her brain and it really made me look at life and assess where I am in my own life. Yes I did realize that I have more than likely already lived more than half of my allotted time and I haven't accomplished much of what I want to. What I learned is that the clock is ticking. Clearly most people end up frustrated in life, not doing the things they would most like to be able to do. We get stuck in jobs we really would rather not do just to pay our bills. After all, it costs (a lot) to pay for a mortgage and associated bills, vehicles and gas, phones, food, clothes....this list could keep on going. The trick is to find a way to pay those bills while doing something that you enjoy. I'm not there yet.

Years ago when I worked at Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, WV my co-workers and I would laugh and joke about men (okay doctors) that would go through a mid-life crisis. These men always bought either a sports car or motorcycle and tried to look younger than they were. Now I feel that I understand them a lot better. Some of them clearly were trying to regain a part of their youth, a time when they were much happier, but they tried to do it by purchasing things instead of finding things that they like. That can only help superficially, smoothing the outside image that a person sends out without discovering what actually makes them happy. Also, it's usually at mid-life when you have the money to spend on these things, unless you're me. I've always been a late bloomer in life.

As for the others who were actually just trying to enjoy life more, well my experiences this year have made me think about what was really important in life. It isn't the things you accumulate, that you own. As a matter of fact those things usually end up owning you. You end up chasing the most recent, newest model or the coolest new gadget. I think it's much more important to be with people that you love and who enhance who and what you are. Basically, if you surround yourself with cool people you'll enjoy life more. Where you live, what you drive, your social status, none of those things are important to me. Making a huge sum of money while nice isn't that important either. What good does it do to make a million dollars a year if you work eighty hours a week and never get to see your family and friends? You never get to see your favorite band or go to the beach or see your child grow.

Believe me, if I could pay my bills off and find a way to support my family on a smaller budget I'd move to Peru right now. The cost of living is lower and there are so many beautiful things to see. I have many ideas that I need to work on, perhaps one of them could be the one to allow me to get paid to do what I like. You can write a hundred movie scripts but if nobody is willing to buy one, well you can't pay your bills with that. It seems that we always need a little help in one form or another to make our dreams and ideas work. Of course you have to put in the effort first to be properly prepared and make it easy for someone to say yes to those ideas. There are untold masses out there who have talent so you have to come with more than that. Determination and a strong will are necessary and even then you aren't guaranteed to succeed. The hardest thing is to find that someone who can help make it happen especially when you don't have any contacts in that field.

All I can do is keep working and planning and doing my research. At least then I can say that I gave it my best effort no matter what the outcome is. You can try and succeed or fail, but if you don't try you can only fail. Besides, if you throw enough crap against the wall eventually some of it will stick. Anybody out there who wants to help show me the way?

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Love, Marriage and Illness

The alarm clock sounded for the second time and instead of hitting the snooze button again he shut it off and struggled to his feet. Squinting his eyes against the light he stumbled to the bathroom and relieved his bladder and following that as he washed his hands he stared at his image in the mirror. For most of his life he had looked younger than he was, even after he started losing his hair. Now though, the events of the recent months had taken their toll on him and his true age was starting to show. He sighed and thought briefly how it is inevitable that everybody gets older before veering sharply away from the direction those thoughts would take him in. Not now, there would be plenty of time during the day for that.

After a small breakfast, which was all he had ever been able to stomach, he washed the dishes and took his shower then dressed and before he knew it the time had come for him to go. He caught a taxi and looked at the all too familiar buildings along the way. The multitude of taxi drivers rarely varied the route so he let his mind drift a bit and very shortly he was there. Slowly he walked up the sidewalk and in the front door and turned left at the first hallway he came across followed by a right turn into another hallway and in a few feet he was there. Room 317. He emitted a heavy sigh and tried to let go of any negative feelings he had. It would do no good to go into the room in that frame of mind.

Forcing a smile on his face he pushed the door open and beheld her, his love. She fastened her gaze upon him, momentarily unsure of who this man was before it all came back to her. He told her how beautiful she was. She said that it was a lie. He told her how much he loved her, how special she was. She denied it all. She was tired of this place, didn't like the doctors and the staff was so rude. He could only tell her to be patient, perhaps soon she could come home. She fixed a fiery gaze at him and asked who he was. Why are you even here? The man weathered her storm of anger, after all, given her condition it was to be understood. Even though it was difficult seeing her this way it had to be incredibly worse to see it from her view.

Her anger dissipated into meandering stories about her life and shortly after that sleep came to her. This was his cue, his time to leave and go out into the world where he could briefly distract himself from the problems of life. He had work to do so that the bills could be paid and food bought. In the evening he would make his way here again to be by her side, silently listening to the same questions and stories all over again, in this building that normally housed people much older than her that was now her home. No, that word isn't correct at all he thought darkly. This is merely her residence, it's not a home at all. A home is a place where love, hope and dreams live. None of that can be found here, this place has no soul and is only where her body resides and occasionally, if he was lucky, he was able to catch frighteningly short glimpses of the woman he had loved his whole life. Most of the time that woman no longer existed, but sometimes, for those few, short moments she came back to him and those moments of clarity are what he now lived for.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.