I suppose it’s inevitable, when you start piling up the birthdays, eventually to start wondering how many more you have left to pile. I know it’s crossed my mind a time or two. But it’s especially interesting to me now that I have a synthetic product in me that has an actual lifespan. There are studies about all the things that go wrong. I’ve read a few. I should probably stop that. Because here’s what I know. Nothing.

Those things are inside me for better or for worse. I can’t feel them. And fairly soon the entry wounds will heal, and I’ll feel more or less normal. My first follow up is in July and after that it will probably be an annual affair. In the meantime, I’m supposed to keep plodding on doing the things I’ve been doing, because apparently nothing I do will have much effect on my synthetic parts. Normally, my blood pressure is good, and they’ve explained that transitory episodes of high blood pressure, see hiking, isn’t really a problem.

The best bet, obviously, is to live in the moment. Not like a grasshopper, obviously, but like a human sitting down to a good meal with lots of courses, that takes a long time to eat where you savor every bite and there’s good company and maybe some music with a nice digestif to close things out. Or to sit beside a river with a friend and watch the water flow. Or just to sit on the back porch and watch the heifers walk by with their calves. Or just to read a good book, alone with your thoughts. But most of all to realize that life is more than an actuarial table. It’s a thing to be lived. And the time I have left is the time I’ll have and it’s a waste to wonder how much it will be.