I Was Seven

Yesterday I was seven.

Life was all about dancing in the sunshine and

rainy days were just excuses to splash around in puddles and sing songs of joy and nursery rhyme.

Hours were measured by the distance between supper and bedtime or the opening credits to the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner show.

Who knew what heights we’d hit, indeed.

Nobody knew, and nobody cared because nothing mattered but dancing in sunshine and splashing in puddles.

The world was my oyster, and it was filled with pearls.

This morning I was thirty-five.

Rarely seeing the sunshine as most of my days were spent

chained to a desk I didn’t own, in a box built to feed the monster of corporate greed.

Just another vermin scurrying through the rat race essential to the survival of my body,

and near guaranteeing the destruction of my soul.

Weeks were measured by those two glorious days when the alarm didn’t sound at six a.m.

Joyous time spent away from all those other days, jammed into that little box,

suffocating in a tight business suit and strangling on my collected string of pearls.

This afternoon I’m seventy.

Chronology may take issue with that statement, but I’ll be damned if biology isn't going to disagree.

Not today, at least.

Not today, when minutes are measured in the time it takes the pain killer to kick in.

And for this god forsaken headache to finally dissipate, and for my stupid arthritic knees give me some relief,

so I can dig out that old jewelry box and polish up that collected string of pearls.

My string of pearls, one for each year.

Tonight I‘ll be ninety.

Laying in my bed, my mind running marathons while my body struggles to find enough energy to get up and go to the bathroom.

Time will once again be measured in hours - the hours it takes to shut down the competing thoughts in my head, end the race, and finally fall asleep.

Thoughts of all the things that could have been.

Thoughts of all the things I wish were different.

And thoughts of how the heck I collected such a long string of pearls when,

when just yesterday

I was seven.