On 44

It has been... a year. The dominant person of my life is no longer with me, but he is still with me all day every day as I feel my own Poppy clock catch up with him. I hope to make it to his 79 and well past it, but today was as bad physically as it was gratifying emotionally.

Apparently the two years we age quickest at are 44 and 60. Well, I'm in this bizarre event horizon between fat youth and sick middle age where the older I feel, the younger I look. The sicker I am, the less I can eat, and the more I look like I'm in great shape (I'm also 6'3 now...). Fortunately, I found a beta blocker that worked recently, and I consequently gained 20-30 lbs back, but now I'm sick again, and if I have a few months of feeling like this, I expect to be down at least another thirty lbs.

We all fight against death: deaths of life, deaths of love, deaths of people we once were, knowing that eventually every fight will be lost. But not yet, and hopefully not for a long long, very long and long while long yet.

The meaning of life isn't work, the meaning of life isn't love, the meaning of life isn't even survival or connection. The meaning of life is life, and taking everything as it comes, one day at a time and trusting everything to its season, every loss and every gain, every triumph and setback, every blessing of surprise and every dream deferred. Every day is not a gift, but some days are the very much gifts. Some days are a bag of glass ground and mixed into the hard boiled eggs that are sometimes the only thing I can eat.

I'm going to be in touch with a lot of you soon, even the people who aren't reading this. Life is here to be lived, and you should see the people whose company makes you feel better (and even some who don't). If it ruins my health on the way? Well, life is meant to be practiced, and if it ruins my health completely, well, life is better lived on the lam from an ambulance than it is in a room waiting for one.

See you soon,

Management

Or maybe the meaning of life is Shen Yun.