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Broke Wife, Big City
No, YOU go
gentle into that good night
By Aprill Brandon
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately.
Oh, sorry. That might be a bit too heavy of a sentence right off the
bat. This is meant to be a “humor” column, after all. Let me start
over.
Good morning! How are you? I’m fantastic. My toddler had a meltdown
inside a store and I dropped a meatball on my baby’s face. But
Starbucks is now selling their Peppermint Mocha Latte again so it all
evened out.
Also, I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Not any particular
death. Just in general. Like, what does it all mean? Is there an
afterlife? Will the mortician doing the makeup on my dead face get my
eyeliner right?
But mostly, I’ve been obsessing about how I definitely do not want to
die. Like, ever.
You might think that something like that should go without saying, but
then you are likely a well-adjusted person with a 401K and someone who
didn’t spend the first 35 years of their life thinking okra was some
kind of seafood.
Not that I ever wished for death (the Great Flu Vomitpalooza of 2015,
which occurred right after the Great Chinese Buffet Overindulgence
Shamefest of 2015, notwithstanding). I fully enjoy breathing and all
that comes with it. It’s just that in past I was always fairly laid
back regarding mortality.
This was especially true when I was young, because when you’re young,
you are invincible. Death is merely theoretical. Like, yeah, everyone
dies. Of course. I never will but sure, yeah, I get it. Everyone dies.
Except me.
Then I got older and started having to adult full-time. And while I now
truly understood that, yes, I too will die someday, I was still
somewhat ambivalent at this point because paying taxes and dating are
just the worst. I didn’t want to die, per se. But, hey, if it meant not
having to awkwardly break up with Craig via text and would end this
epic hangover from hell, I wouldn’t, you know, rage against the dying
of the light or anything.
But then I had kids. And those adorable little jerks changed everything
because the millisecond after looking into their tiny screaming faces
for the very first time, I knew that I absolutely had to live forever.
FOREVER. I can never, ever, ever, ever leave them. EVER. I’ve often
heard people say “my children are my reason for living.” Well, my
children are the reason I can no longer die.
EVER.
Seriously, the thought of leaving them reduces me to heaving sobs and
the ugliest of ugly cries. I have so much more to teach them! So much
more to show them! At least 80 more Thanksgiving dinners with them
where I ruin the day with another Star Wars vs. Star Trek argument!
And then there are the million more days I need with them because they
are the best human beings to have ever existed.
Because that’s the thing about having kids. Even with the exhaustion
and the fears and the tantrums and the mysterious smells emanating from
under the couch, my kids make my life more. More colorful. More fun.
More beautiful.
Every holiday is magical again. A walk through the woods is full of
gnomes and fairies again. And love is back to its purest, simplest form
again.
It’s life in Technicolor.
And there is no way I’m missing out on a single minute.
So, currently my plan is to live to 114, where I will be raising my
great-grandchildren because my granddaughter June is a complete hot
mess because she was too spoiled by her grandmother. And by then, when
I finally do kick the bucket, the technology will exist to link up my
consciousness with a computer, turning me into an awesome old lady
robot who says completely inappropriate things in a cool robot voice.
Or better yet, I will become a vampire. And when my children die, I
will spend the rest of my immortality just chilling at their grave
sites and going trick-or-treating with my great-great-great
grandchildren and eating all the descendants of the people who bullied
me when I was in elementary school.
Because the alternative is no longer acceptable. I simply cannot ever
leave my kids.
I’m not just going to rage against the dying of the light.
I’m going to punch it in the throat and knee it in the balls.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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