Driving 55

Long long ago I gave up on wishing I could be somebody else. Sure, I would change some things if I could, opportunities more than choices.

I’m 55, 55 and a quarter, on the crest of middle age, with the certainty of an eventual wipeout in view.

I’m single. By choice. No regrets. Naturally, opportunities for sweaty casual fucking thin out with age, especially for someone like me, lacking the desperation the situation perhaps calls for, averse to pursuing unexciting quarry for the sake of having my ticket punched. But, honestly, no regrets.

As a community college instructor, I have good seats for observing the young—the beautiful and the not so beautiful—so I can say with certainty that I do not wish to be young again. I like young people, looking at them and teaching them and hearing their outlooks on life. But I do not want to join them. Envy is not what I am writing about.

Still I want to be the best that I can be, and I have to admit I have let myself go lately. I haven’t stepped in a gym for five years. Letting oneself go is of course liberating in its own way—a way of shouting fuck you to other people’s expectations—but carried too far, it dims energy, pleasure, and hopefulness.

I think it would do me good to look after myself better than I have been doing.

To live is to move forward.