58

That's a lot of years. Dang.

I hope when you get to be 58 you will have eased into some form of sanity. No, that sounded odd. You are mostly sane already, aren't you? That's not what I meant. Rather, I hope that by the time you are 58 you will not discover yourself to be a psychologically dubious creature.

I simply hope you ease into elderness without being temporally displaced. Without thinking you have been shanghaied by time and left in a confused condition. Without libido increasing instead of subsiding. Without monumental daydreams oozing from your brain. And appalling night dreams leaving you run over by a cement mixer truck when you wake up. That's all I meant.

58.

I can still jump through windows. Sing on pitch. Crawl through tight places. Imagine the impossible. Climb trees. And when wasps attack, I achieve a goodly proportion of the speed of light. I flee from them so fast they can't even see me. It's awesome!

But pain has arrived in the leg and hip. Old age pain, like rheumatism or something. In autumn, things get sad. In winter, my bones freeze. In summer, the air is oppressive. In spring, well, it's just all a bit too much -- the emotions cascade and tumble through my soul like illicit, hollering court jesters. The first rose bloom fills me with inertia, sucks all the time and reality out of me. Makes me ponder things that should not be pondered.

58.

Add the digits together, and you get 13. Add the digits together, and you get 4. I don't think I've matured or developed very much beyond my fourth year. Sometimes, it feels more like a devolution than evolution into more reality.

Anyway...this version is a bumpy version. Giddy ups and breathtaking downs.

I hope you have a smoother ride. But there's also a little something good to be said for twirling inside this barrel of screaming monkeys....