HAVING AND BEING YOUR OWN PET MONKEY

 My wife once told me, “I love living with you. You're so amusing. It’s like having your own pet monkey .”   I think she’s right.  Lots of things I do and think don’t make sense, and are not rational. And so I deliberate what I want to do with all its limitations and then ignore the obvious; the pet monkey is amusing.  So onward I go, unrewarded and unheeded,  plodding off into the night to fight a war no one cares about. 

However, I can tell that moments when life gets vivid reawaken what we already know, and getting closer to my truest self is a sort of reunion. The liberation felt by being oneself, warts and all, is amazing.

And so, at 81 I am still going to ride bikes. Though my doctor says my knee is a trainwreck and I should never run again, but have surgery, I am running, however incredibly slow it is.  My young grandchild walks faster than I run, but the pet monkey says,” Try anyway.”

So, I smile as I write this because it  all makes life and what’s left of it fun and “amusing.” I would rather be that pet monkey than a well-liked imitation of someone else