I turned 29 this week and a lot of people seem way too eager to remind me that 30 comes after 29. Sesame Street never really went up that high with their numbers so I'm glad someone told me, otherwise I never would have known. I don't know if it's because I'm a guy or because I just don't care but turning thirty doesn't really phase me.
Growing up in the 90s we had a lot of "Black man to man" talks in elementary school where they'd constantly remind us that our life expectancy was 21. I remember some guy challenging us to live longer. Kinda sad when you think about it, but DC was the murder capital at the time with 400 or so murders a year. Anyway, I'm happy to see another year and hope to live to be 150.
I recognize though that this is the time when people start pulling out their mental 20's bucket list. Mine is pretty empty. Hell, I got married at 21 when everyone else was still buying girls drinks at the bar. I've always lived by the motto of "I'd rather regret than wonder." I've always felt like life was best enjoyed by living and, outside of being totally reckless, you should try to do what you can, when you can.
When I was 27, I found myself applying to be a cop. I had a lot of reasons which are all irrelevant now, but I was so committed to it that I lost 50 lbs in six weeks. No diets, no pills, just hardcore working out. I was 225 on April 1st and 175 on May 15th. I guess it helped that I was unemployed, bills were piling up and savings were running out. Eating is a hell of a motivation to get in shape for a job.
Anyway, I was all but ready to grab a badge and gun when my police physical came back with a heart problem. Thanks to lax healthcare professionals, I went 27 years without anyone noticing that I had an arrhythmia whose sole symptom is spontaneous increases in heart rate to lethal levels. After getting the "you could die at any moment" speech, I had surgery a few days later. Those were the longest three days of my life. You have a lot of time to reflect on just how you've lived your life and what you'll do if you make it through heart surgery.
Obviously I made it, but then something else happened. They run a lot of tests when you apply to be a cop. They called me two days after I had the heart surgery to tell me that something didn't look right with my liver functions and I should go see someone. The doctor ran a battery of tests and left a voicemail at 4:58PM on a Friday to tell me that it looks like I have a tumor and it "could possibly be cancerous, but let's not jump to conclusions just yet." That was probably the worst weekend of my life. It didn't help that no one would return my calls and they couldn't find my results for a week so I had to do more tests. It was two weeks before I found out that I was fine, but imagine the conversations I had with myself over the two weeks that I thought I was dying.
I didn't tell my wife about any of this. I was just coming off the heart surgery and it seemed like too much for her to deal with, so I kept it to myself. Two weeks of listening to my friends and loved ones talk about how shitty life was because of bills, girlfriends, crappy bosses and all I could think about was whether or not I'd die the next year. I don't think much of anything has bothered me since all of that went down. I'm no monk or anything. I get pissed off at simple stuff like traffic, but nothing is the end of the world for me, and I damn sure don't get upset at the thought of living to see my 30th birthday.
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