Now Let’s Hold Hands And Sing “We Are The World”

I was sprawled out on the mat at the Y, stretching my aged muscles in preparation for my morning run, when she walked in and greeted me by name. My autopilot was already engaged, so I offered the standard-issue "How ya doin’?"

"I’m tired."

Not "tired" as in having just completed a strenuous physical workout. She had just walked in the door and checked the kids into the daycare center. This was "tired" as in contemplation of trying to pack another ditty bag of a day with a week’s worth of chores and responsibilities. The Y time is something she does for herself, and she feels guilty for it. She’s cute-as-a-bug, a wife and a mother of three beautiful little kids. She was probably born about the time that I was failing my first college-level course. That makes her young enough, but far too attractive, to be a child of my own.

I could have dismissed her response as an autoreply to my own spam greeting, but I disengaged my autopilot and seized the opportunity to do what I do best: hand-fly a little doom and gloom over the target area and open the bomb bay doors.

"It only gets worse."

Perhaps it’s my own track record of immeasurable failures and bitter disappointments that compels me to counsel others on their own impending failures and disappointments. They can’t see the train coming, so I feel obligated to point it out to them. And then tell them there’s nothing they can do to get out of the way.

Had I been a parent, my pessimism-based system may have actually been the preferable methodology. Consider the parent who refuses to purchase a lottery ticket because of the insurmountable odds against winning. This is the same parent who will unabashedly tell his kid that he can grow up to be president. No he can’t. He can’t, because there is already a kid out there who can’t avoid becoming president. Achieving the presidency requires a pedigree established in the womb, as well as considerable funding. The kid with that pedigree and funding is out there right now, filling his Pampers with gold doubloons, and he is going to become president no matter how hard he tries not to. He can join the Texas Air National Guard and flee to Alabama, spend 20 years in a drug and alcohol induced haze, pass out in Hunter Thompson’s bathtub, and even refuse to learn his native tongue. But he will be apprehended and forced to become president. Twice. It’s his destiny.

I would have been a more honest and less misleading parent. Refusing to adopt the "grow up to be president" motivational crap, I would have opted for buying my kid a weekly lottery ticket. If you’re going to gamble, play the odds that are calculable. After all, look at this mythical kid of mine. If he gets through a day without swallowing his tongue, my mythical wife bakes a cake.

So I proceeded to offer this tired young woman my own version of "This Is Your Life."

"In your twenties, you are filled with hopes and aspirations. You are embarking on a great adventure, and you imagine the tremendous sense of accomplishment you will feel as you achieve each milestone in your grand plan."

This poor little gal had set sail this morning with no spinnaker, a torn mainsail, and a jib that was merely luffing in the light breeze. I reached for my jib cutters.

"In your thirties, you yank on the cord as each milestone passes, but the bus doesn’t stop and your transfer doesn’t get punched. You just settle back and try to protect your window seat. You keep looking outward because it’s unnerving to view the myriad of other passengers rocking in their seats and muttering to themselves."

"But you seem to be doing okay." Her offering sounded more like an inquiry than an observation.

"I laugh a lot, but that’s just a release of delirium. You see, in your forties you reach the age of reconciliation. That reconciliation can fall on either side of a very fine line that separates acceptance from simply giving the fuck up. Either way, it’s a resignation to the fact that you are driving down one road and, off in the distance, you can see the one you should have been traveling. You can’t get there from here, and you can’t go back. Your road leads to an inglorious destination, and all of the remaining rest areas have clogged toilets. Unless you’re Colonel Sanders. You’re not."

As she wandered off to her class, I noticed that she had left her cloud’s silver lining behind. I would have returned it to her, but upon closer inspection it was just tinfoil anyway.

See why I live alone? Have a nice day.