@missy @rambo
This is GigaBall,
Its about five feet wide and looks like some cross between a chemistry model and prolapsed anus. It was also one of the presents I got for my son whose third birthday we celebrated yesterday. GigaBall has already been on a rampage powered by the bouncing and running of wee little legs, like some hamster ball of doom that threatens small dogs, lesser quality toys, solid state electronic devices, and glassware. Needless to say the kids think it is great, where as my wife just keeps sarcastically saying ‘Thanks, no really, thanks’ to me everytime GigaBall claims a new victim in its assault on her home decor. All in all, I feel like I came through on being the fun dad, as opposed to the grumpy fucks so many poor little boys get stuck with.
So what does GigaBall have to do with what I want to accomplish in the next year?
I’m thirty nine now, in a year I cross that invisible line of forty. I still jerk it daily, often more. I ride a BMX bike, even though my daily commute has changes of elevation in hundreds of feet. I posses a college education with a degree and extensive work experience in software and network engineering, but I’m more excited over attending a bike mechanic and frame building series of courses in Portland than I am in returning to the corporate technology field. I like working as a auto valet at a great and swank boutique Seattle hotel much more than I ever did working in corporate software design and engineering. I still love making that ‘Fuck Yeah’ decision, where the passion for an experience and journey feels worth way more than the safe option’s promised results.
At this point you might ask, ‘Alright. But really, where the fuck does the fucking GigaBall fit into all this and what you want to accomplish in a year?’
A week ago, I am there in the aisle of Target, looking over the toys. And there it is, the obvious fun as fuck choice. Rather than pick it up, and casually walk off with a smile as I anticipate the great memories to come of my youngest having a blast, I instead scoff at what a bad idea it be because it might end up causing trouble or breaking something. Suddenly I’m not me, I’m this old guy. As I am walking out the toy aisle I stop at the fitness one, I look over the bullshit they sell promising to spot shape a gut. I suddenly get self conscious, because my 'Dad Bod' sure could use some work on the abs and pecks, maybe I should give this snake oil a try? As I am standing there, weighing how my abdomen is giving way to gravity, I notice a girl? women? God dammit, somewhere after thirty three a twenty year old lady started looking like jailbait to me. Anyhow, she is smiling at me. Does she find it amusing how this poor old guy is thinking he is gonna buy some crap fitness junk and roll back time? Or maybe she is just playing polite to get past this creepy old guy who has suddenly made eye contact with her, and has a stupid smile on his face. Then she says, ‘Finding everything okay there Sir?’ Shit! She is an employee, and obviously felt she needed to come investigate whether this old man had gone full senile right in the middle of the store.
Needless to say, I had a moment of utterly needing to get my shit together. It was then I recalled how the great Tony Hawk feels when people ask him when is he gonna retire, ‘I’m old, get over it.’ So, with a shrug, I slightly unaware of saying it aloud answer her, ‘Nah, I’m good, and fuck it he’ll have a great birthday with GigaBall, thanks.’ The dumbfounded employee gave a somewhat tepid smile, slowly nodded her head, and watched me go back to that toy aisle and claim my sons rightful, and possibly somewhat irresponsible, birthday fun as fuck gift.
GigaBall, in that moment, became my marlin and I Santiago, as I played out my own personal ‘Old Man and the Sea’ when I decided that despite time's passing and it’s consequences on me, I still needed to be me, I still needed to find who that was and be true to it. And not in some vain and delusional ‘I’ve still got it’ denying of the fact for what time is doing to my body and mind. But instead working to be aware that there is an enormous gulf between knowing that time passes for everyone, and being mentally and emotionally secure with how that is happening. Like managing my mental illness, or keeping in shape, I also must do the work of knowing who I am, changing what I can, accepting what I cannot, and finding peace with where that leaves me in the end with regard to the passing of the last of my youth and the process of gradual physical decline till I feel death’s icy grip on me as it whispers ‘Memento mori’ in my ear while tumbling me off into the eternal darkness of no longer existing.
A year from now, I want to accomplish being more mindful and proactive with dealing with my own aging, and appreciating it. I’ve just started, granted under absurd circumstances and reasoning, to realize I must do this if I do not want to become a victim of denial or worse a self loathing ‘victim’ of aging like I have seen in others too caught up in pop culture youth obsession. I don’t want to be that fella in a Target, caught up in irrational insecurities that are stepping on my enjoyment of the important things in life.
In memory of Luigi, who was GigaBall’s first casualty. Though our attempts to find your body have thus far been unsuccessful, know you shall be missed as a whole none the less.
