About 10 years ago I was renting a condo in San Diego with a girl who I met through my running/fundraising with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We knew as soon as we met that we would make great roommates and be lifelong friends. When a good friend came back from Japan and asked me to let him move back onto his 43 foot sailboat harbored downtown, I cried…and then cried some more…and then got on with it. And moved in with Kate. When we were filling out the applications we had to list the d.o.b. of our roommate and learned we shared the same birthday – coincidence? There is no such thing!
I’m 50 so I’m thinking Kate is about 38 or so. She may just read this one day and correct me on my grammar and syntax as she is an English teacher. Make that was. Now she’s a stay at home mom to 2 cracking kids. I doubt she’ll remember me saying one day that she and her ilk are, in some ways, better off than us regular folk. And her ‘ilk’ are cancer survivors. She had dodged 3 bullets by the time she reached her 30th birthday. And I’ll have to expound upon that statement some other time.
The title of this missive comes from the day she came home and told me about a distraught student of hers. She taught at a very good private school and the kids were over achievers. This one day a 16 year old girl who’s mother was in the process of divorcing her third or fourth husband asked…”Miss Gordon, how old are you when you stop making stupid decisions?”
I’m smiling right now as I think of that question. As I’m sitting here writing this when I should be doing one of soooo many other things today. Because there is no answer to that is there? I’m 50 and some days I take stock of some of the things I’ve done in a day and wonder when I’m going to hit puberty!! Good Grief Mel, what the heck were you thinking when you did that?
And, I have a point to make. People who’ve faced death and live (I’ve been around more than you could ever imagine) see choices differently to us, excuse this description – it’s me I’m talking about – immortals. I think I’m going to live forever! Do you know why? Because I habitually say “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Which means I obviously know I’ll wake up in the morning. Ergo, I’m immortal. Strike that! I choose to not do certain things because I can.
Once upon a time that meant a gallon of beer and a pizza a night. Now it’s writing blogs when I should be making dinner….oops…
