I am closer to 100 than to zero now. What a strange place to reside. I am shocked by the passage, but not the place. I found her along the way and she fills my days with added light and my nights with suffusing warmth. On most mornings I feel a sense of gratitude often accompanied by coffee and an egg with toast across a tabletop. The distance between us bridged by a smile or even a scowl. This day, each day, she is there and I know her presence is by choice and not circumstance.
I am closer to 100 than zero now. What an odd space to be in silence, while the world is top spinning through pandemics and anger. Along the way the world has held and discarded promise like broken Styrofoam coffee cups or crumpled beer cans along the side of the road. No weeping Indian to remind us that we are responsible for our own joy and love. But the world is filled with TVs sloganeering about shopping or saving or scoring or loss and we confine our grief over death to eight minute, end of the year In Memoria segments on morning shows or alone in our bedrooms, asking why no one holds our friend up as equally praiseworthy. But in those moments we recognize the famous become past tense as quickly as the un, so what is the truth which might outlive us.
I am closer to 100 than zero now. I have smelled the roses, tasted the wine, danced like no one was watching and been embarrassed. I have sowed my oats and eaten them at breakfast many mornings. I have taken a bite from the apple, turned volumes of lemons into lemonade and limes into caipirinhas and never soured on living. I have wandered aimlessly and birddogged my way toward goals I never chose for my own. I have owned cars and houses but recognized I may never have owned my own life. I always owed it to others, gave control over to bus drivers and directors and cabbies and teachers and doctors and parents and spouses and children, most of the time without resentment, sometimes without joy, almost always to my benefit.
I am closer to 100 than zero now. I see my face as older, my hair as grayer, my stock as stockier, my gait as more considered. But my mind still springs to the step, still seeks new experience, still craves new knowledge, still lights with new passion. I still take umbrage at the wrongs I perceive whether they affect others or only me. I still have intolerance for cruelty, and I have not grown complacent or sedentary of thought, despite sitting more but enjoying it less. I still love the exploration of language, but realize a small sentence can bring the greatest joy – I love you and always will – you are forever my child.
I am closer to 100 than zero now. I am not afraid of what is to come. I am not concerned about the final dash to 100. I have made trips before that never achieved their destination but were still filled with experience and laughter. I am closer. I am just not there, yet.