..when I'm sixty-five....
You have to have goals in life, you got to have reasons to live. At least so I have been told.
My goal in life is to become (at least) 65; and my reason to live to that age is not because that is the official pension age in the Netherlands, but because at that age I am allowed to open a letter my dad wrote to me, when he was sixty-five (and which he still has not finished yet at age of 68. Must be quite a read then, when I am 65...).
I thrive on other people's misery, I enjoy another's ache. I celebrate demise, and I applaud deterioration. So whenever I can I ridicule my dad, and make fun of his, well, old age, and all that comes with it. Agree, it does not come across very nice, and may even make me look like an un-nice character, but hey, I guess everyone has his vices....
My dad is a loving and lovable father, and sees and hears my remarks with the attantion they deserve: hardly. However, I guess we are very alike. On his 65th birthday, or around that time, he decided to write me a letter, only to be opened on my 65th birtday. The letter will not be a letter of advice, because he guesses that by that age any advice wil be lost on me.No, it is going to be a letter from one 65-year old to the other 65-year old, with a sum-up of his life, and more importantly his abilities and disabilities at that particular age. It is a check-list of what I should still be able to do at that age (for instance, comb all my hairs. He has beaten me on that front already). It is the ultimate match, but also the dumbest: there can be no re-run of it, it is the sum-up of our lives up to that moment, but neither of us will have any pleasure in winning it, because my father will not be there to ridicule me, or be ridiculed by me.
Still, I like the idea. Even when I am 65, old and weary, I can be outsmarted by my dad, who will 'speak' to me on that day as if he is there. It might be the moment in which I regret all my jokes, but it might be a moment of triumph. For sure it'll be a boy-ish moment indeed.....
My goal in life is to become (at least) 65; and my reason to live to that age is not because that is the official pension age in the Netherlands, but because at that age I am allowed to open a letter my dad wrote to me, when he was sixty-five (and which he still has not finished yet at age of 68. Must be quite a read then, when I am 65...).
I thrive on other people's misery, I enjoy another's ache. I celebrate demise, and I applaud deterioration. So whenever I can I ridicule my dad, and make fun of his, well, old age, and all that comes with it. Agree, it does not come across very nice, and may even make me look like an un-nice character, but hey, I guess everyone has his vices....
My dad is a loving and lovable father, and sees and hears my remarks with the attantion they deserve: hardly. However, I guess we are very alike. On his 65th birthday, or around that time, he decided to write me a letter, only to be opened on my 65th birtday. The letter will not be a letter of advice, because he guesses that by that age any advice wil be lost on me.No, it is going to be a letter from one 65-year old to the other 65-year old, with a sum-up of his life, and more importantly his abilities and disabilities at that particular age. It is a check-list of what I should still be able to do at that age (for instance, comb all my hairs. He has beaten me on that front already). It is the ultimate match, but also the dumbest: there can be no re-run of it, it is the sum-up of our lives up to that moment, but neither of us will have any pleasure in winning it, because my father will not be there to ridicule me, or be ridiculed by me.
Still, I like the idea. Even when I am 65, old and weary, I can be outsmarted by my dad, who will 'speak' to me on that day as if he is there. It might be the moment in which I regret all my jokes, but it might be a moment of triumph. For sure it'll be a boy-ish moment indeed.....
posted by David Hein at 6:33 PM
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