Waiting For My Birth Certificate to Expire

Let’s say you wake up one morning and look around your bedroom and at your wife (or significant other, or life partner. Don’t want to leave anyone out.) and then you stand up and every bone and muscle in your body hurts. Next, you decide to lie back down, but you know it will hurt even more if you do. Finally, your bladder is full and you know the only way out is toward the bathroom. You’d think the day would get better from there, but it doesn’t. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty much like that all day, every day. I want to be clear here. I’m not starving, my family is only nominally dysfunctional, and I have a pretty good job, as jobs go. But, it’s wrong. It’s all wrong. There is a gaping, ugly hole that I can’t fill in. It’s been there since I was about 20. And I still don’t know how it got there or how to make it go away. So, instead of spending more time trying to figure out how to make it go away, I thought I’d share my pain with all of you. And, when I’m done, you’ll either feel better about your life, or agree with me and we’ll all meet on the ledge some New Year’s Eve and rain down on the celebrating crowds like so many 200 lb pieces of confetti. I started to make this about my life. You know, how I grew up, what happened to me to shape and mold my current personality, where is the puppy Grandma gave me, why do I look so much like the mailman, what happened to my first two failed marriages, how did being in the war in Vietnam curve my brain and so on. But, I don’t think there was anything in those years that was traumatic enough to make me the way I am today, at 63 years old. Instead, I want to share what I’ve learned in my life and pass it along to all the people who have solid, prearranged, work-your-ass-off lives. Let’s see what happens.