But A Number

The Aftermath
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

I gather no one will really want to read the following story, but it is part of my reality, and so I relay the following if only for my own good.

Yesterday I realized I’m getting a bit older.

As young as I will my spirit to be, Age still has my number. So far, she’s been pretty good to me. And so, I sincerely cannot complain.

Yet, yesterday I had a minor operation—the surgical removal of a cyst that had been benignly rearing its ugly head just above my left clavicle. It was a tiny thing, no bigger than a bothersome blackhead. Alas, as innocuous and almost inconspicuous as it had been, just sitting there under my skin for the last couple of years, the doctor and I agreed that it was best to have it removed.

*

The night before, in a shirtless unguarded moment I was letting my belly hang out, and as it protruded over my waistline I thought and sighed out loud, “Oh, boy…”

My eldest son, Enzo, The Precocious Six-Year-Old, immediately jumped upon the opportunity to ask one of the million questions he asks everyday, saying, “What? Papa…”

I hesitated answering, primarily because I was being self-conscious, and by not telling the truth I would not have to face my reality. And so, I just brushed him off with a smile and answered “Oh, nothing.”

Alas, he could detect the deception in my curtly glib answer, and thus prodded again. “Come on Papa, tell me…What were you thinking?”

I pondered for a moment and asked myself, “What are you afraid of? What would be the harm in being honest here? “ So, foolishly I replied, “I was just thinking about how fat I feel.”

And then, as shocked as I should not have been, Enzo shoots point-blank without a blink, a punch straight to the paunch, “Well, Papa, you are fat.”

Yikes. How’s that for a dose of reality? His utterance was pure as could be, merely an innocent and objective observation from a child yet to be tainted by the rules of sensitivity.

Hence, it did not irk and jerk me as a regular insult might, but it did bite me a little nonetheless. And so, as any almost-forty American male might react, I resigned myself to the standard middle-aged resolution—“I’ve got to get back in shape.”

Point being, after the operation and Enzo’s observation I’m felling a little older, not in a bad way though, for I still believe that Age is but a number.

*
Last night I was with my good friend Robert and during a moment of enlightenment I declared that “My past was all good. Why should I think otherwise. Really, what good would it do me to reflect upon the past with anything less than a positive disposition?”

Regardless of the fact that I was declaring this to someone who was in the middle of earning his doctorate in history, I maintained that looking back must be done with the same attitude that we look forward with—for the victorious write history, and the losers merely dwell upon it.

And so, I must think positively about each day that passes and every telling sign that I am passing with it. For thinking positively equals being positive(ly).

And albeit I possibly, quite plausibly, am being wholly delusional, in that exuberance meets mid-life crisis sort of way, I must say that I am quite happy believing the bullshit anyway…

So, why should I think otherwise?