For a long time, I’ve thought and said that I figured I’d die when I was around 51. I’d be crossing 6th Avenue or somesuch and be taken out by a bus I didn’t see.
I mentioned this to my friend tonight, and she was really mad. Her husband, who suffers quite a few ills, truly may not see old age. I wasn’t thinking of him when I wrote it, but somehow it became a source of anger.
I think I believe this because it is my experience and no doubt the experience of many, many other people that some folks simple get… taken out one day. It happens. Every day. In all places all over the world. I don’t have a suicide bent or anything like that. I just… don’t think I’ll see old age.
This really ticks her off though, and I suspect her hubby too. Is it so weird to think this? Why is it okay to have an upbeat saying like, " Live every day like it’s your last !!! " if you don’t think that today really could be your last ??
I’ve always felt I was going to be ‘taken out’ one day as well. Minding my own business strolling down the sidewalk when a 103 year old man driving his land yacht simultaneously runs out of gas and has a heart attack, his car then silently rolls up and over the curb turning me into street pizza. Mmmmm pizza.
Of course I might NOT get ‘taken out’ and live to a ripe old age so I still sock a little cash away to buy that land yacht and nice wide brimmed hat. You might want to look over your shoulder a little more often in about 50 years
Funny you should say that, just tonight as I was driving home from work I witnessed two lives “taken out” just like that - although they were dogs.
It’s dark and I’m driving home on my usual route. Up ahead I see two light-colored dogs bolting across the road with traffic coming from both directions - the one following gets nailed straight on by the car in front of me and goes spinning across the asphalt.
I feel a brief shock, a sense of relaxation having avoided the accident myself, and then a mere seconds later, I see another of the same type of dog crossing just a bit uproad get nailed again by the same car. The body goes spinning right in front of my car. I swerve at the last second, barely missing it and thankfully not causing an accident myself, as there were no other cars around.
OK, I don’t know how relevant that is to this post but it was kind of a harrowing experience and I wanted to share without starting a new thread about it. It did make me think about the sudden and unexpected nature of death.
Another strange thing about it - when I pulled up to the next stoplight I was right next to the driver of the killer car. I looked over at him and he looked visibly distressed - and I remember a strange feeling of repulsion, like I just wanted to get away from him. Truth be told it was not really his fault - they absolutely bolted out right into heavy traffic, and at night-time to make matters worse. He probably did not have time to react. And yet I couldn’t help feeling like I was sitting next to a murderer! (should he have at least pulled over?)
That’s a pretty common thought.
In a way, it’s wish fulfillment. No one wants to get old. We all know, intellectually, that we grow old. We just don’t think it will happen to us. So, we have to make up a colorful end, that sidesteps that “old” part.
So, get over it. No one gets out of this alive, but the simply aren’t enough buses and land yachts for everyone.
I live in perpetual fear that I will be killed in a very public and embarrassing manner, mob laughter being the last to register in my mind before fading to black. I try to avoid things like banana peels, loose fitting pants and dancing bears, lest tragedy ensues.
I think technically in the UK you have to stop if you run over a dog and check with the owner. Some sort of legal thing where cats and rabbits aren’t legally animals but dogs are, perhaps related to dogs being animals that may “work” and cats not. Correct me if that’s BS but I remember it from somewhere.
I did apologize to her and talked to her hubby later on last evening. I didn’t say anything with her hubby in mind, but I should have HAD him in mind and not spoken as I did to her. My bad.
picunurse, ouch. You are right and I know it, but it stings to read it so bluntly articulated. It is as you say.
One or two familymembers have said the same thing to me. It annoyed me tremendously. I couldn’t quite express what annoyed me, at the time, but after some consideration, I think it was because they used (or so I interpreted it) that belief as a vague cop-out to shirk responsibilities.
Because hey, if you only live till 50, why keep that steady but boring job? Why invest in a retirementfund if you can spend the money while you’re still alive?
What annoyed me even more is that they didn’t have the courage of their beliefs: neither had taken life-insurance for their family, and neither had made a testament.
The other thing that annoyed me is that both guys who said “I won’t get old” seemed to want to bask in a premature James-Dean-kind of glory. I could almost see them daydream about their obituary which would say loving things like: “he died too soon, plucked away in the bloom of youth, he was so promising” etc.
Part of that must have been fear of not living up to their own expectations and fears of mediocre middel-age. I understand the fear, but the daydreaming was to me, cheap romantic escapism and feeling “special”.
I was absolutely convinced that I would die by the time I was 22. Said it for years. I am now 37, and still kicking. I did, however, completely change myself and my environment by the age of 22. So a death of my old self and history, perhaps. You might want to think of your death scenario in a similar way. Or what picunurse said.
Wow. Such things had not occurred to me. First of all, I’ve plenty of life insurance. Far more than my wife, who has a steady job. I’m a freelancer and always have been.
The James Dean thing? Not on my radar. The ducking responsibility thing? I didn’t mean to imply this is the most carefully planned suicide in modern history- far from it. I mean that I do not expect to be one of those people who avoids the random violence of modern life, and think I’ll be taken out suddenly one day. I’ve though this since I was in college, though I will admit that now, at 44, it sure feels different to think about it than it did at 20.
I don’t think it is that bad and I even feel it myself. Friends have told me that they fully expected to die at X years of age and I found it shocking but I didn’t get mad at them. I have always believed that I will die in my 40’s (I am 33 now). I just switched over from consultant to full-time employee and the only thing I really focused on during my benefits meeting was life insurance. We have several different kinds here and I wanted to get it up as high as possible. I think the HR person was a little shocked and annoyed.
Agree 100%. I won’t set a specific time, but I’d rather end my life than be a suffering shell of my former self, with nothing but death to look forward to.
I’m the opposite - I’ve got really long lived relations and I’ve always assumed that I’ll be one of them - it’s not necessarily a good thing because I’ve also always assumed that for the last 40 years or so I’ll be all alone, except for a decrepit old dog. I’m thinking of investing in a rocking chair and a shotgun just to complete the vignette.
As soon as I purchase these two items, I’ll most likely be mowded down by a bus, because that’s what my luck runs like.
Why? Why did you feel the need to apologize to her? I dont’ understand why she was upset about you talking about YOUR death, which most of have no idea when it will happen etc, so it was mere speculation. Ok, so her husband has health problems–and?
I’m not picking on you, but I see this type of thing among people I know. None of us are supposed to order a glass of wine when out with my inlaws, for instance, because she is a “reformed” alcoholic. Since when did someone else’s problem become a burden for others? [hijack over]
As to my own death–I was just talking to my kids about this (not quite that way). I would like to live to a hale and hearty 80. And if illness or similiar creeps up on me before then-off I go. If I’m still kicking at 80, I may set my sights at 85. But once that is achieved-I’m gone, somehow, someway. I will not be a burden, financial or otherwise on my kids etc.
That’s a whole different matter than planning one’s life around an early death.
Please remember too, that 70 is the new 60. If you stay active and healthy, you don’t have to feel 70.
I was convinced I was going to die in a car crash in my teens and I even knew what road it was going to happen on. I’m 25 now and I live over 2,000 miles from that road.
You could hold a raffle !!! Allow others to do what you would prefer not to do yourself. Sell tickets !!
Proceeds to go towards your internment. That’d make it a zero-cost event, including the obligatory catered shindig in your honor ( held, of course, at The Thalia. )
Posted too quickly, sorry for the double-entry here.
elanorigby, I agree with you and I don’t exactly know WHY I apologized. I think because she was so upset that I talked about my thoughts, with her husband ( who does have quite the panoply of long-term and degenerative health issues ) sitting nearby. OTOH, hell yeah- the whole wine glass thing? That smacks of passive aggressive manipulation, and perhaps that was what was going on there online when this happened. Gotta think about that some more. I have never logged an IM in my life, so I cannot read back on it.
Larry Borgia, my Mom is a retired Hospice nurse. So we all know what that entails. She has said point blank to me more than once, " You know how I feel about this. Don’t leave me alive in a vegitative state, completely incapacitated. I detest that idea and would be in endless mental anguish if that came to pass. Don’t leave me alive if that happens. "
Well, I mean my god. The first time she said that to me I got teary eyed at the very idea. She gave me life, taught me about life and is in my life on a daily basis. If she needs to know I will allow her to control her last days, or force a last day, then at this moment I feel I will try to respect that. I fully realize what that could do to MY life, but I mean… well, grapple grapple.
alice in wonderland, if you’re lucky, the rocking chair will shield the dog from the glancing blow from the bus, and the driver will adopt the dog to make up for the huge guilt he feels over having clocked you out.
If you stay active and healthy, you don’t have to feel 70.