In The Final Moments of My 51st Year

Last updated on: March 20, 2010 at 11:00 pm by John Shore

In The Final Moments of My 51st Year 2010-03-20T23:00:07-08:00 John Shore

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As I write this, I will be fifty-two years old in exactly one half-hour. That means that by the time I actually finish this I’ll have been fifty-two for about two hours, because these days I have trouble seeing the keyboard, and oftentimes forget what I’m saying right in the middle of … something. Plus, I’m emotionally shaken. It’s not easy going from fifty-one to fifty-two even though it’s unavoidable without actually dying, and let’s not get carried away.

Ah, fifty-one. I remember it like it was today. How naive I was then; how carefree; how prone to skipping when no one was looking, though people tended to because for me skipping and moaning go together like jumping jacks and one of my kneecaps flying off and hitting a small dog. I was like a boy then—a werewolf boy, because of the body hair. But I had that same wild abandon, that zest for life, that predilection for leaping on people from trees and chewing on the backs of their head. My heart was light, my cares few, my worries pretty much none because who worries about what they can’t remember? And, let’s face it, how many cares does a werewolf really have beyond making sure never to run out of hair mousse and flea collars? So my life was a breeze.

Fifty-one. The very sound of it is now anathema to me, as is having to take the time to make sure I’ve used that stupid word right. Because unlike my life when I was fifty-one, I must now take responsibility for who I am, who I want to be, who I used to be, who I don’t have to be anymore because the police have finally quit looking for that person, and who I might yet become if my wigs and shoe lifts ever show up from Cleveland. Plus, I think it’s high time I learned the difference between who and whom. Then again, I’m still too young to croak of boredom. Maybe next year.

And now, at 11:59 p.m. on March 20, 2010, I’m going to wait exactly one minute before hitting the “Publish” button, if I don’t miss and accidentally hit the “Delete” button, which would be probably be the last straw for me. For the entirety of that minute, I shall, in remembrance of the man I used to be, remain silent. If in that time I do not doze off, rest assured that I will publish this post, and thereby shall you learn that, yes, I made it to fifty-two.

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