No Wind In The Sails

If I were to predict the age of my demise I would place a bet on either forty two or forty three. And since I am thirty nine right now, it doesn't leave me with much time left. But am I concerned? Does this early journey to the casket have me chewing on my thumbs and basted in a worried lard? Well quite frankly no. And I'll try to explain why.
Having sat in the hood of death, and under the stalks of misery, for a number years now I have reached the decision that dying at forty would not be as big a tragedy as many seem to believe. It might be 'young' but to me it is almost the perfect age to shuffle into the ether. And NO I am NOT 'depressed' or 'down in the dumps' or whatever other flimsy diagnosis could (falsely) be heaped upon me.


Abide with me

I have done enough in my nearly four decades; drank enough to sink a battleship, kissed enough horny lips, banged a head to metal until the cymbals woke the dead, eaten more snakes than eagles. The list goes on and on, way beyond the last mile that condemned prisoners are fond of speaking of.
So forty doesn't look as bad a year to drop from the tree to me. Afterall what can I do at forty that I couldn't do at thirty? And do it quicker too.
When I reach forty I will be able to do whatever I did at thirty (only slower) and when I get to fifty I will be doing the forty stuff (again only slower.) On and on the bandolier of time is fed through the same tedious chapters. To me there is only so much repeats I can suffer before wanting to throw in the mortal towel.
At twenty I wasn't too impressed by those in their thirties, who seemed dead on their feet to me, and now that I am coming to the end of my thirties I can say with feeling that I was correct in my younger assumptions. Life is thoroughly unimpressive.
Now that I think of it, there really is no young and old to my mind. Its all one, long stretch and I do not really wish to string out another four decades doing the same things but taking longer to do them.
However (and heres where those who see my thoughts as 'suicidal' are proved wrong) I do not WANT to die. Why on earth would I? I have recently become a father to a beautiful, adorable girl who I love with every fibre of my soul so eventhough death looks quite attractive, I will not be taking the dirtnap for a long while. If I have any say in the matter.
I want to live, I really do! Jingle bells, jingle bells, dashing through the snow all of that. Its a wonderful thing is Life (even for the permenant hospital dwellers and those scrotes on death row.) I have so much to live for, but in the same breath I don't see the tragedy if some miserable disease were to strike me down this instant. All im saying (in my rambling kinda way) is I am prepared to fall at any time, and if one is able to complain and whinge in the EverWorld (afterlife) then you certainly won't here whining from my soul. Forty is a long time, anything beyond it is a bonus. If I live a life as full as a eighty year old in half the time, I don't mind dying at forty.

Only Stone Lieth Here

Allow me to say before I start that I do not believe death to the End, quite the opposite in fact. I believe there is a rootin' tootin' howler of a party when one crosses the veil into the Afterlife, a place where I can personally thank Coleridge for his wonderful poetry and ask Freddie Mercury what he was doing in Queen. I really do believe in that stuff regardless of what my fellow poets and writers have written so it may not come as a suprise to read what im going to say next.
Graveyards. Why do people visit them? Is it because they are the place which holds a loved ones bones? Or is it because in this ever increasingly busy world, a cemetery is one of the few places left one can find any semblence of peace?
Allow me to set my stall out fully here. Two years ago my mother passed away at an early age. Naturally I was devastated but since she crossed over to those platinum pastures I can count on two hands how many times I have visited her grave. Heartless? Hardly, I weep for dying deer in the middle of the road, it is simply because I know (really know) that she is not in her grave. Sure a shell of what was once my mother lays there but her spirit is now enjoying a very different plateau. She is with me every day so why would I want to visit a slab of marble? That makes no sense to me and in fact looking at cold stone only serves to make the mourner even more miserable (if that were possible) because nothing echoes sadness better than stone.