Whaddya Expect?

Yikes!

I just found out that the life expectation for Americans is now 76.4 years. We'vde lost seven months in the last year.

 I'm in the forefront of the Boomers. We're entering no man's land like all the generations before us.

I'm gonna turn 76 in a week.A month after that, I'm scheduled for surgery to deal with a mystery polyp on my colon. I'm not worried though....I've got another .3 years to go after the procedure.

Because my polyp is a mystery man, we still don't know if the thing is cancerous so we don't know whether the upcoming procedure is preventative or not. We'll know when it's outta me. I'm in the weird position that I kinda hope that is is cancerous because it's coming out one way or the other.

The surgery is scheduled for the 26th of January, the birthday birthday of my late father which I take as a good omen.

I've still got time to back out of the deal as my surgeon is as baffled as I am about the nature of the mystery polyp. The decision is mine.  If I have the surgery as scheduled, I'll be in the hospital for three days. When I get out of the hospital, I'll be on a liquid diet. According to my surgeon, I can expect 2 to 3 weeks of "exhaustion" after the procedure.

The whole deal forces me to contemplate mortality once again. As usual, I have no symptoms so it's not as if I'm going to feel any better than I'm feeling now. I haven't felt better in years but the contemplation has affected my writing. I'm having a traffic jam of thoughts. I've got plenty to write about but can't find the angle,

I'm used to leaping out of bed with an idea and an angle to explore that idea. Of late, I've been lingering in the bed and kinda dreading the urge to write as almost everything beyond life itself seems to be foolishly off point.

It's not a good thing when a writer wakes up and says "I don't know what to write about today so I'll write about life". The subject is a little to big for words. Life needs an angle.

My angle today is yesterday's report of life expectancy. In some ways, I'm right on schedule. Why am I surprised? Perhaps I'm surprised because I still have so much to do, so much I haven't got done  and time is no longer on my side....no it's not.

I've been thinking about how I would describe my life now that time is forcing me to focus. At first, I decided that these words would sum it up. "He did what he could."

Then I get the pang...."He could have done more".

I've got more to do.

When I get past this procedure, I predict a new sense of urgency. Hell, I'm probably gonna lose a few pounds and I hear those hospital drugs are great.

It's obviously late in the game. If I were to pass this year, nobody could say "he died young."

From now on, death is mos def knockin' on the door.

I hear ya knockin' but ya can't come in.

If we went by averages, everybody, man and woman, would have slightly less than one testicle. The hell with averages and expectations.

Last time I checked, I was all present and accounted for.

So let's get it on.

Merry Christmas to all as we begin yet another great adventure full of ideas, angles and urgency.