14,965 Days

Me on my tenth birthday. Thirty-one years ago. 

14,965 Days

            That’s how many days I’ve been alive, so far. I was born 41 years ago; it doesn’t feel like it. It never feels like I’m the age I’m “supposed” to be. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t matured or learned things along the way. It just means that I’m not “acting my age,” so to speak. That means I’m not doing the stereotypical things a person my age would do. I’m not sure what a 41-year-old is supposed to do. Look at investment portfolios, have champagne with supermodels off the bonnet of a Mercedes? Is that what I’m supposed to be doing? Double points if the model is named Mercedes and has rack and pinion steering. Fuel injection is a given.

            You are as old as you are made to believe you are. I’ve talked about this numerous times that being 40-something doesn’t mean you’re “over the hill.” I thank God, Cthulhu, numerous deities, and anyone with good taste that I wasn’t given black lollipops on my 40^th birthday. You know the ones I’m talking about. They come with black and white pictures of tombstones, and the aforementioned phrase. I don’t feel “over the hill.” If anything, after a lifetime of depression and anxiety, I’m just getting started.

I needed experience before I could the things I want and need to do. Otherwise, I’d be lost. Being rudderless has its advantages. It teaches you to navigate by dead reckoning. That’s an aviation and naval term for using a compass and a map, but no modern instruments. You’re flying or sailing into the unknown, and your wits guide you.

It doesn’t work on those without wits, though. They think they are on the high seas. In reality, they just go around and around, and eventually realize they’re on a toy boat in a tub, circling the drain. They fall victim to either soap scum or the dreaded Quaken (rubber duck with attitude). I digress, but many a person falls victim to both. It’s like that part in The Odyssey with the whirlpool and the snake creature thing…and you get the idea. Makes me sound all smart that I made that reference.

My birthdays are difficult for me for a number of reasons. What bothers me the most is that number of days. Not to sound cliché, but if we knew the number of days we’d have to live, would that change our perspective on things? Would we grow complacent, and feel, “Well, there’s still enough time, isn’t there?”  

I spooked myself by doing a quick calculation. 41 years divided by 365 days (not counting for leap years, which are dubious anyway). That’s how I arrived at the above title. I then scared myself further by adding more numbers. How many days in are in eighty years? Ninety years? I kept adding days onto the clock, in an attempt to plan ahead. How many more decades do I have? If I’m truly middle-aged, then I probably have another five decades before my physical existence is reduced to words on pages, photos, and videos online. I then wonder, “Is there any way I can put extra time on the meter?” I exercise because it makes me feel better, and I look better because of it. It may help me avoid health problems in the future, but it’s not a path to immortality. My best hope is to make some kind of impact before the remaining decades are finished. Whatever form that impact may take.

In the cult classic Logan’s Run, each character has a “life clock,” a crystal in the palm of their hand that counts down their remaining days. Sadly, no one is permitted to live over thirty in that film, because they’re afraid of aging. The protagonists escape their dystopia and learn that life doesn’t end after thirty. Sorry to spoil a film that’s slightly older than me, but it’s still worth a watch.

The point is, there’s more to life than the false concept of time. “If I don’t do this by thirty, I’m…” Fill in the blank. We place similar deadlines on ourselves, and for what? To guilt ourselves into fulfilling major life goals before it’s “too late?” Some of us don’t have 14,000 plus days on the clock. Some people only have hours, or minutes. Some only live a year or two before their clock winds down. Some live over a century.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip have both lived over nine decades. They may very well reach ten decades. Did they do everything they set out to do in life? Probably not. But at least they both made an impression on the world. They won’t be forgotten like King Ethelwulfnuts The Fair, and Queen Hruumfullafarts The Bit of Alright. I’m quite sure those were real Saxon monarchs, pre-Norman, of course.

Every time I’ve plateaued in life, I’ve seen it as time for a change. I would hope for the day when I didn’t have to work a menial job that I detest, just so I can keep the lights on, and the rent paid. I’m in another one of those periods now. Except this time, I’m actually trying to make a go of changing that situation, in a very real way. I can’t predict the outcome. All I know is that whatever happens I won’t always have to live paycheck to paycheck. I certainly won’t have to listen to grown adults throwing tantrums over the phone for the next five decades. And I sure as hell don’t want the same fate as King Ethelwulfnuts.

14,965 days…and counting.

Copyright Riley Joyce 2020 

Author's Note: The above photo was taken in my childhood home. Out dinning room had this weird brick and faux-Tudor wood-beam motif. The trousers you see hanging in the background belonged to my step-grandfather. My mother hemmed them for him. How I was photobombed by them is a pure accident. They were polyester. It was the 80's, don't judge!