The other side of tomorrow.

Do you think about it? Have you pondered it for any stretch of time...be that days, weeks, months, or even years? The dance ends, you know. Of course you do. In the history of man, apparently only Methuselah's private quartet kept playing long after they call it a wrap for everyone else.

I think about it. Tragically, almost daily. Of course, I've fought - and continue to fight - the monster every day. Pills for headaches, pills for blood thinning, pills to soften the neuropathways that wander mile after literal mile through my brain.

My brain. Years ago when I smoked, I thought it would be my lungs. Waking up at 4:30 am for 21 years in the Army, then running 6 miles in -20 degree temperatures at Ft. Riley Kansas made me convinced that it was going to be my heart or my will to carry on with that crazy shit that would do me in. My first wife had me convinced I was going to die at the end of a shiv...thrust into me by a fellow prisoner at the State Pen. Why would I have been in the State Pen? Ohhhhhhh....I would have been there if someone hadn't mentioned that a divorce was the safer option.

But my brain? Not my brain. This brain has survived everything from absentmindedness to outright stupidity. No way a brain that has been put through all that could be giving out just because a vessel or two was being stubborn and no longer wanted to be on the highway.

BUT...

Well, you know what BUT means. Everything that follows the word BUT is bullshit. "I was about to promote you Bob...BUT." "You're a fabulous person Sheilla, BUT." "Speel Cheek on Blooogspot is suuuppposed to wirk, BUT." And one of my favorites: "Yup, I was going to give you that money yesterday...BUT."

JL4, your overall fitness is fantastic....BUT.

So I think about it. Too much to be honest. But it is the ultimate truth, is it not? Are we going to? Yep. What can we do about it? Nuthin'.

So when the big day arrives...whether that be next month or 35 years from now, I'll be comforted in the knowlege that I had rehearsed it in my head a few thousand times over the years.

Annnnnnnd... I won't have to worry any more about that money you won't cough up. Nor will I be forced to listen to your "but I was going to's."

See? There is a silver lining after all :-)