Metal Body Parts

I have come to the conclusion that the key to the whole mess that is life is to be in the moment.  I think that's the answer to everything.  If I'm in the moment then everything is just fine.  Even if I'm in pain - emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, doesn't matter - I'm okay if I'm in the moment.  My problems all arise when I get into the future - where terrible things are happening to me - or drift back into the past - where I'm full of regret about all the terrible things I've done.  I struggle against my tendency to want to be doing something - usually something else - which comes more naturally to me than sitting quietly in the space I'm actually in.  It was that way with my drinking.  At the end I wasn't doing it to feel better - I was doing it to feel different - or better yet to not feel anything at all.

I'm in my 67th year of life and I ask this of you, people: How the fuck did this happen!?  I'm grateful that I’m healthy and loved and secure.  Don't get me wrong here . . . I'm bitching with a smirk on my face and a smile in my heart - but I'd really rather be like 30 years younger with the knowledge of life that I have now and enjoying the material comforts and lack of commitments that I currently wallow in.  It really isn't fair that we don't gain all of this knowledge when we were younger and could put it to good - or at least better - use.

We were in the security line at the airport getting ready to board a flight for another one of our incredibly self-indulgent voyages, queing up for the bomb sniffer machine which cannot possibly be attached to anything real, when the TSA agent asked SuperK if she had any metal.  The woman started to point out her watch and a bracelet when he interrupted: “No, ma'am - do you have any metal body parts.”  When she demurred he gently waved us past the sniffer.  Apparently, we didn't look to bomb-worthy at that point.  I didn't hear the exchange because if I did I would have just turned around and gone home.  The implication that I might have a metal body part was too much to comtemplate.