Come On Down

Our lives will not flash before our eyes.
It’s now or never baby.
It’s put whatever you can in your coffee; you got no cream; you go creamless.

Our lives will not flash, there are no second chances, no curtain calls.
You don’t get to go out smiling, a million friends around you waving, successful, perfect, concluded, finally weighing 125lbs.

Everything you said you wanted, there’s nothing there. I’m not saying don’t dream, I’m just saying don’t wait, don’t long for it, don’t hold out for it.

That balloon you’re clutching, that little string in your hands, the way you’re staring up at the sky looking for answers, look again. It’s just you down here.

The way you play that little game about three months to live and what you would do, everything you’ve kept out of reach for so long, waited for, how you’d eat fresh shrimp with limes everyday for lunch, or how you’d actually order an ice cream cone for yourself when you take your kids out, or eat more burritos, or have the courage to wear a short kilt with military boots like your friend Jane, or dye your hair festival red, or give yourself a couple of days off, or get on a plane to Italy with your husband because he’s never been there.

When you get honest, when you swing that door wide, the truth is maybe you should do those things and maybe you shouldn’t. Who cares? They’re not actually going to change you or help you or heal you. Whether you do those things or not doesn't matter.

That maybe it’s more about wanting and waiting that keeps you suspended, keeps us tolerating our perfectly average lives, the way things really are; how we look in the morning; the lines around our eyes, the grey coming in, how the house gets trashed and the messes pile up; the dishes, the clothes, the bills needing to be paid, another magazine saying no, the friend who doesn’t return a call.

And longing and wanting and all of those dreams you have are just a way to keep you reaching, looking away, high on helium,

And so I was thinking if I really did have three months to live maybe I wouldn’t go anywhere because there’s no where to go. How actually perfectly fine I am to live at the end of this dead end street in this ramshackle house with a family of mice below and a coven of possums above. And sure I could eat with more freedom and my kids would really get a thrill if I did order an ice cream cone in their presence, and I would like to wear that short kilt with the boots.

But who cares? Wanting and waiting is just a way to keep myself floating, but in my heart, really, I just want to come down.

Timing

Even though my i.pod died yesterday, and even though that was hella bummer just cause I am all about the music, baby, when I saw the motorcycle cop lying flat on his back on 880, lying there on the side of the road as I headed home from the Apple Store with my dead i.pod, heading home all pissed off because the brainiac at the Genius Bar wasn't helpful, treating me instead with a kind of weak disdain because I had nothing for him to fix, no lusty trouble for his Great Brain to fuck. “This i.pod is dead,” he said with a scowl, thrusting it back at me like some dirty piece of meat. I drove home peeved and pissed because a new one was going to cost me and the insurance on this one had only expired two weeks ago. Bad timing, bad timing I grimaced. And bad luck too. And then I saw the cop and I saw his motorcycle twisted and mangled against the guardrail and a couple of bashed up SUV's practically on top of it. And there was the cop lying there on the side of the road with his helmut still on and the small circle of civilians who'd been in those cars kneeling around his body, protecting him, comforting him, and I took a deep breath and I slowed down and I said to myself, timing, timing baby, timing.