Contemplating my Mortality

I would like to own a gun, but I would have to keep the bullets somewhere else.  I wouldn’t want the temptation of finishing my life at the whim of a bad set of circumstances.

I don’t trust myself with myself.

It does concern me, though - death. Mostly how and when, now that the “with someone or alone” debate has been decided.

Wondering if it’s going to be a lingering disease, or something more quick and to the point?  If I linger like my mother did, I’ll be a burden to myself and others, and the final five or six years won’t be “living” in its truest sense.

Perhaps what bothers me the most about it all is that my current active lifestyle will come to a crashing halt at some point sooner than later.  I’m 68 now, and pushing myself to the point where I ask myself “why are you doing this to yourself?”  To go from that to nothing will be a mental strain that I don’t know if I could handle.

Which is another reason why I should not own a gun.

As an only child without a father for most of my childhood, I have come to depend on myself for just about everything.  I was a “Latchkey Kid” when my mother had to work .  I walked home (1 mile) from the school bus stop, let myself in, and put a frozen meal in the oven.  The Three Stooges would come on, and I would eat and wait for mom to get home.

I had already developed into a kid who didn’t need much attention.  Perhaps because I never really got any, I don’t know.  

When my wife and I separated, we went to a counseling session.  I’m not sure what the expected outcome was, as I found out much later, she had already seen this therapist prior to our couples visit. So, I felt like the skids were greased against me - but I digress.

The therapist asked us what we each did when we separated. She went home to her parents, and she had people around her.

When I was asked, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I stayed home and went to work.”  Incredulous, the therapist said, “You mean you went through this by yourself?”

        “Of course,” I replied.  “What else was I supposed to do?”

    I don’t go crying to people, or seek-out some zone of comfort.  Work and my habitual behavior keeps me as normal as possible.  I don’t gain a lot from sitting and stewing over something.  And, as I get into my 70s, I find less and less to stew about.  It really stops mattering at some point, and the reaction to most things is, “could you just leave me alone?”

However, we aren’t always the one who gets to decide that.