Happy (Almost) Birthday to Me

When I was 18 years old my parents were killed, and like a lot of things that happen when you're 18 I spent a lot of time crying and bitching about how it affected MY life. But the older I get, the more I realize how YOUNG they were - my mother 47, my father 48. 48!!!! How awful - I turn 37 tomorrow, and if somebody told me I only had 11 years left I would be horrified. Too young, I'd say. No freaking way. I guess when you're 18, 47/48 might as well be 90 years old, you don't really think of it as young - particularly your parents who no matter what are always filed under "old." But like I said I'm 37 (in 95 minutes...ain't in no rush, dammit.) I got friends that are pushing 48. 48 doesn't seem so old anymore. 48 is too young for anybody to die.

I think my father in particular would've enjoyed his "twilight years;" with all the kids outta the house he could've dedicated more of his time to his passion, pretending to listen to my mother when she was talking non-stop geneology. He had an entire file cabinet filled with correspondence with long-lost & found relatives from America, Canada and, of course, Ireland. And that was back when you had to type out a letter on a typewriter, mail it somewhere and then wait weeks and months for a response. Yeah, I can't imagine it either; even as I'm typing this I'm like "oh for fuck's sake, when's this post going up? What's taking so long????!!" Anyway, he'd wave Brothatime!! and me into his room and excitedly yammer about some letter he had gotten from some great-aunt's niece's second cousins mother's son who was in The Beatles, I mean, a shopkeeper in Ireland, prattling excitedly (well, for him) until he could no longer pretend he didn't see the "please knock me out" glaze of indifference covering our eyes. He'd probably have traveled to Ireland many times by now, hunting down possible relatives in faraway, green corners. But he never got the chance to.

The first time I realized my dad even had an age was on his 37th birthday - I can still see those over-sized pink and blue candles 3 7 on a birthday cake my mother baked for him. And now I find myself at the same age, and I feel like somehow I am at an ending. Not of life or anything dramatic like that, but something's gotta give - my weight, my drinking, my living like a college freshman pissing away year after year, something. I wanna shoot past 48, I wanna get to my own twilight years, I wanna get to them green rolling hills in Ireland. Because, despite my seemingly own best efforts, I still have a chance to.