Two hours into sorting through old paperwork to see what needs to be retained and what can be shredded and jettisoned I came across pictures of my colon.
These lovely photos are from my last colonoscopy and are due to be updated around this October when I go back for my next one.
These 16 x 24 glossy glamour photos revealed a need for me to go on a three year cycle instead of five so I have a good nap to look forward to somewhere around this October.
It will mark the third time my GI gets to see my naked ass up close and personal but sadly he still hasn’t had the good manners to buy me dinner or to even offer a cocktail.
Anyhoo, not long after I filed the shots I came across a photo of my crooked finger and remembered the comments I received when I posted that on Facebook.
Don’t expect me to share the colon shots there too and not because some of you have alreadt seen me in all my glory. I have become a quiet and shy man in my almost middle age.
That is me in the suit, all of 44 years old and to my right is the famous Big Lug we called Moose.
It’s about 16 years now since we last got to hang out and as I wrote earlier this week I talked with his little brother about what would happen if he needed to go cross that rainbow bridge too.
I promised him there was a 125 monster waiting for him who would tell him stories about all of the shenanigans he pulled and about what I was like when I was 25.
It threw me to realize that together they could cover 30 years and for a moment I wondered how could so much time have passed.
Thought about how sometimes I have trouble recognizing myself in the mirror and how other times I see exactly who I have always been.
It is the eyes, always in the eyes.
My little buddy has improved significantly since I wrote that post and the superstitious part of me almost hesitates to put that out there.
It has been a very rough week for some friends of mine, I know people who have lost children and even though my pal is part of the family it is different.
That being said I got excited when the mutt started barking at me because he wanted to go outside and expected to receive a treat.
We swapped stories about growing older and how some of it is harder than expected. I had an honest conversation with him and told him about what happened when my father told me he had agreed to have part of his leg amputated.
Dad told me it was a gamble that might pay off on extending his life. I asked him to be specific and he gave me the answer I knew he would.
He told me it was unknown. I don’t know if he knew I asked because I wanted to see if he would give me a rational response or if it would be something else.
I didn’t like hearing it but I didn’t argue against it and had he said something that I had thought was ridiculous I don’t know if I would have argued or not.
He was in complete control of his faculties and for that I have always been grateful. He knew us all to the end.
So I told my furry friend that I know there is a clock and that none of us will outrace it, not even those of us with four legs who can run like the wind.
But I said there is no rush and that we’d like to have as much quality time as we can get.
Thirty-Seven Years Later
This coming May will mark the 37th anniversary of this photo. The house it was taken in was torn down and rebuilt and some of the people who were at that party are gone too.
That guy in the photo was on the swim team and was the Editor-In-Chief of the high school newspaper. He thought he was going to graduate high school and spend his freshman year in Israel.
Afterwards he might go to the University of Arizona or UC Irvine because he had been admitted to both schools. He thought a bit about becoming a sports reporter or maybe going into law.
There were some other possibilities too, but at the moment that shot was taken time felt endless.
I am a decade older now than my parents were back when the photo was taken. It occurs to me it’s good that I haven’t ever tried to measure my life against theirs.
By the time my father was 55 two of his children were married and he was only a couple of years away from becoming a grandfather.
We all walk our paths and though there are similarities there are always big differences too.
You had a parking meter in your bedroom? Cool! I never saw a parking meter until I was in my early 20s, back in the days when a quarter gave you 30 minutes. So many things have changed since then; I hate growing up, especially because I’m not rich enough to change anything in my life right now.
Good friends of mine threw a surprise party for my 18th birthday. That picture was taken then, but the party wasn’t at my house so that is not my parking meter.
Growing up in LA I saw meters from my earliest years, but I remember a couple of dimes being enough for a little time.
I hear you about not being rich enough to change things. That can be challenging.