<\/p>\n
LIVING THE GOOD LIFE<\/p>\n
There are three ingredients in the good life:
\nLearning, earning and yearning.
\nChristopher Morley<\/p>\n
Ezekiel Emanuel is 57 years old.\u00a0 He is a physician specializing in cancer and the Vice Provost professor The University of Pennsylvania. He is a very smart man. Last October, he wrote an essay saying he wanted his life to end at 75.<\/p>\n
He is a fool.<\/p>\n
When I was 57, I had no idea what fun I could have once I crossed the line where productivity, beauty and fame topped the list of what I needed to make my day.\u00a0 \u00a0When I was 57 I cared that my face was drooping, my hearing dulled and my walk slowed, step by step.\u00a0 I am 81 now and I love my wrinkled face.\u00a0 It gets me every perc I could possibly want.\u00a0 I step into a packed car in the tube and at least 3 gorgeous men stand up so I can rest my wrinkled bum on a seat.\u00a0 I board a train and take a premium seat that is labeled Priority Seating just because I have been around a long time.<\/p>\n
When I carry packages up or down stairs, there is always someone to carry those bundles for me and usually with a smile.\u00a0 I hop (yes I can still hop) on a bus and sit down without worrying about the fare.\u00a0 I go to movies, plays and concerts and pay at least 25% less than everyone else including all those youngsters under 60 with low paying jobs and expensive taste.<\/p>\n
If I am in a queue and it is taking too long I clutch my heart and gasp a little; that gets me to the head of the line before I can exhale.\u00a0 I stand at a counter rummaging though endless coins I cannot recognize without my glasses and NOT ONCE has anyone said, \u201dHurry up, Bitch.\u201d\u00a0 No indeed.\u00a0 Invariably there will be some kind soul who will hold my packages while I search for coins I dropped in the bottom of my purse and the clerk will ALWAYS smile and say, \u201cTake your time, darling.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that brings me to another point:\u00a0 EVERYONE, man, woman and even toddlers, address me as \u201cDarling\u201d and they mean it. The very things I did at 50 that annoyed the hell out of everyone; the missteps and accidents I had in my twenties that made both husbands leave me; all are absolutely adorable now that I am in my ninth decade.<\/p>\n
But it isn\u2019t just the attitude of everyone around me that has made life so very sweet these days.\u00a0 It is MY attitude.\u00a0 I am no longer concerned with what I see in the mirror.\u00a0 It never got me much when I was younger and I don\u2019t expect it to be the 8th<\/sup> aesthetic wonder of the world now.\u00a0 That means that all the time, money and anguish I spent in beauty shops and on countless rejuvenation creams, skin enhancers, hair boosters\u2026all of it is now spent on more rewarding activities like eating anything I want because what the hell: by the time I am too obese for my coffin, I won\u2019t care. I won\u2019t have to spend the extra money for it either.\u00a0 The welfare department will.<\/p>\n I am at the age now where I can spend as much as I want for anything I want.\u00a0 If I run out, I can get benefits.\u00a0 My intention is to reduce my bank balance to zero and then apply for residence in a home.\u00a0\u00a0 We take care of our elderly here.\u00a0 I am not worried about my liver either.\u00a0 It\u2019s held up this long, hasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n When I was in my fifties, I anguished because I had not made a visible mark in the world.\u00a0 No one knew who I was.\u00a0 My name never made a headline.\u00a0 Now I realize that it isn\u2019t the publicity you get for what you do, it is what you do that matters.\u00a0 If it makes me happy and I am involved, then hooray; getting some award or a mention in someone\u2019s column won\u2019t change that.\u00a0 It took me this long to get that.<\/p>\n \u201cBut here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world,\u201d says Emanuel.<\/p>\n And I say, \u201cHow does he know that?\u00a0 He hasn\u2019t gotten there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Well I have and I can honestly say that my walk is slower, but I get where I want to go and I do not feel deprived.\u00a0 I enjoy my life just as it is.\u00a0 I do not have the same desires I had at twenty or thirty or forty because that is not the stage of life I am in right now.\u00a0 My perspective has improved.\u00a0 I have confidence in myself. I trust my judgment.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to go to bars and find a hot sex pot to take me to bed.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t interest me anymore.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to wear uncomfortable clothes that reveal my nether parts because my nether parts are not the focus of my pleasure anymore.\u00a0 My mind and my heart are the hungry organs now and I do everything I can to feed them.\u00a0 It is more fun and not as sloppy.<\/p>\n It took me a long time to figure out that life is like a card game.\u00a0 You take the hand you get and play it out the best you can. It does no good to bemoan what you didn\u2019t get or begrudge others for what they have achieved.\u00a0 You do not know what they had to do to get there.\u00a0 I am happy now with the life I have but I am not content to stand still.\u00a0 Not yet.<\/p>\n I am living in the now.\u00a0 What is past is gone.\u00a0 I am not that person anymore.\u00a0 I don\u2019t look good in her clothes.\u00a0 I do not want to walk in her shoes.\u00a0 They would pinch my bunion.\u00a0 I do not want to waste the time she did on the telephone bemoaning what she didn\u2019t have.\u00a0 I love my current life and I am determined to make the most of it.\u00a0 I will not waste my energy worrying about what I will do when I am ninety because I am not there yet.\u00a0 When I am, I have no doubt that I will have adjusted to the difference in my motor abilities, my memory and my diminished life style.\u00a0 I do not know how I will like it until it happens.<\/p>\n Do not get me wrong.\u00a0 I do not want to waste away in a hospital bed anymore than you do.\u00a0 I have reached an age where I am determined to let my body fall apart at its own pace.\u00a0 I do get my flu shots but I am not sure I would allow any procedures to prolong my life if I had a terminal illness.\u00a0 I am not afraid of dying.\u00a0 It is after all the most dramatic event in our life other than birth.\u00a0 I cannot recall being afraid when I exited my mother\u2019s body and I have no intention of being consumed with fear about my death because I have no idea when it will happen or how.\u00a0 When I am there, I will deal with it. Hopefully it will be a grand and dramatic departure.<\/p>\n My goal right now is to live abundantly.\u00a0 I will not spend one iota of the time I have in worry because worry never accomplished anything and I have a lot I need to do.\u00a0 I want to learn to fan dance. I see me shimming and swaying to the music showing off my cute bum and my shapely lets and then turning to the crowd, peeking out of the fans with a face that looks for all the world like an abandoned prune that needs ironing.\u00a0 It should have an amazing effect on the crowd.<\/p>\n I want to play the ukulele and tap dance while I do it.\u00a0 I want to explore the nooks and crannies of a Europe I have read about and I want to make a lot of strangers laugh.\u00a0 \u00a0Want to fall in love the right way this time\u2026loving who he is, not how he looks, what he buys me or what he wears. The size of his wallet or his dick are not barometers of love for me anymore.\u00a0 They never were but I thought they were.\u00a0 I know better now.\u00a0 \u00a0I cannot be bothered regretting the hump on my back or the arthritis that has gnarled my fingers.\u00a0 They still work and while they do, I am using them.<\/p>\n I have done the accepted thing.\u00a0 I have prepared a directive that tells everyone not to resuscitate me and not to use any artificial means to keep me alive.\u00a0 I have donated all the organs that work to anyone who needs them although who would want my ears is something I still cannot figure out.\u00a0 My kidneys however are stellar and I hope the person who gets them appreciates how beautifully they have worked for me.<\/p>\n I do not want to lie in a hospital bed on life support with medical science keeping me alive and i know very well that is a decision I must make while i have all my faculties and can prepare the proper papers to keep an exuberant medical staff from pumping up my lungs and stimulating a heart that no longer wants to beat.\u00a0 I have done that but that is all I have done.\u00a0 I am ready and willing for death to happen when it is ready for me.\u00a0 My mother always said I arrived two moths after I was due.\u00a0 \u201cYou were always slow,\u201d she said.\u201dRight from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n But I got here didn\u2019t I?<\/p>\n I hope my exit will be cleaner and faster but if it isn\u2019t well\u2026I cannot know what it will be like until it happens.\u00a0 I am determined to only die once\u2026.and that will be on the day my heart stops beating and my lungs give\u00a0 me no air.\u00a0 \u2026not one minute before.<\/p>\n The trick is to live\u2026live as fully, as beautifully and as daringly as you can.\u00a0 Reach for every star and don\u2019t be afraid to meet the price, do the work and pay the dues to get you there.\u00a0 There is no dream that is impossible.\u00a0 Wallace Stegner says we do not die from a disease.\u00a0 We die because we are finished.<\/p>\n I am not finished.\u00a0 Are you?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n \n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LIVING THE GOOD LIFE There are three ingredients in the good life: Learning, earning and yearning. Christopher Morley Ezekiel Emanuel is 57 years old.\u00a0 He is a physician specializing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"