Insides
Metaphorically I’ve been staring at my navel for nearly ten years. Now, for the first time, I am acutely aware of what lies behind said navel. In the last two months, I’ve had an endoscopy, an echo-cardiogram, and a chest and pelvis CT scan. Every major organ was scoped and studied. Lots of medical terms were bandied about to describe what was seen. My doctor has translated them into English. What they saw was what anyone can see when they look at my face. I’m old. Things are wearing out.
Still, the doctor always says, after talking me off the ledge, the magic words, for your age. Apparently, he’s seen worse. I’ve never smoked. I drink randomly. I try to eat well. My body mass index hangs out around 24. I exercise by walking to the tops of mountains and small hills. I go to sleep at 9:30 and try to get up at six. Most days there’s a break in there around 3 a.m. My mind is still active, obviously, since I try to write every day.
So, all things being equal, I suppose I stand a good chance of carrying on for a bit longer. Four million of my baby boomer compatriots, however, have passed on just since 2020 and I knew some of them. I think that means at some point my heart is going to say, last beat coming up, and the last beat will beat and my scoped and studied system will shut down. But until then, until that day, it’s best to be in good humor, keep my house clean and my underwear washed so that no one feels sorry for me when it does.