The things I cannot change

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about when I turn 70, even though it’s 21 months away, and what’s the point? It’s going to happen anyway.

After all, I spent a lot of time over the years thinking how devastated I would be when Willow The Best Dog There Is™ dies, and it didn’t make me any less devastated when it happened. So why worry about being almost 70? because it will be just as surprising — no, astonishing — as I imagined it would be when it happens.

It means I’ve been stumbling along for a long, long, long time, long enough to know the 10 or 20 or 30 years to go will be a long time, too, so better to get down to living it than wondering about how long a time has passed.

I remember “Volare” by Domenico Modugno being a new song my mom loved, and that was the summer of 1958, and I remember hearing “Calendar Girl” on my brother’s transistor radio from WKBW in Buffalo, New York, and I was amazed to learn there were other radio stations in other cities far away, and that must be early 1961.

It was a long, long, long time ago, which — especially on the days when it feels like the years passed in a flash — is good to know, because I have less time left to live than I have lived so far, but (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise) it all means that I have a long time left, which is good to know because I have a lot of stuff left to do (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise).

What’s that you say? The creek seems to be rising? Oh, heck. I guess I’d better get busy.

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You can read my new book Full within seconds by buying the ebook, or within a week or so via print-on-demand.

Published by WarrenBluhm

Wordsmith and podcaster, Warren is a reporter, editor and storyteller who lives near the shores of Green Bay with his wife, two golden retrievers, Dejah and Summer, and Blackberry, an insistent cat. Author of It's Going to Be All Right, Echoes of Freedom Past, Full, Refuse to be Afraid, Gladness is Infectious, 24 flashes, How to Play a Blue Guitar, Myke Phoenix: The Complete Novelettes, A Bridge at Crossroads, The Imaginary Bomb, A Scream of Consciousness, and The Imaginary Revolution.

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