Why I’m Writing Now

There’s nothing like the visceral awareness that you’re gonna really die that makes all other fears seem stupid.

I’m 66-1/2 years old. I have been living in turtle mode for probably 46-1/2 of those years. I think I know when I went “turtle.”

At Queens College I had a writing professor who did not like me. He thought my writing was pretty good and he gave me a good grade but he didn’t like me. I could just feel it. My writing seemed to make him uncomfortable — I was too naked. So I went turtle—I slipped my head into its shell and I stopped writing. I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable and I didn’t want anyone not to like me.

Well an extra 46-1/2 years on this planet can make a lot of changes to one’s perspective. There’s been a lot of drama, pain, joy, and everything in between. There’s been a need to learn resilience. In fact I think I have earned my Ph.D. in resilience.

So my younger brother Jeff passed away last October after complications from a minor surgery. My little brother had been through three open heart surgeries and came through like a trooper. A simple surgery for benign prostate hyperplasia was what did him in. What the fuck.

This experience has woken me up like no other. Both of my parents have died and a number of other people close to me. But my little brother dying was like: you’re next. Now I don’t know if that is literally I’m the next one in my family to die. Maybe, maybe not. This knowledge is beyond my pay grade. But what I know in my gut now is that, yes, one day, whenever, I too will die. This life is time-limited. And the sleep-filled life that I lived, in which “I’ll do it tomorrow” was a frequent refrain, has come to an end. 

I am filled with an urgency to make up for lost time. I realize I have so much to say and I want to say it NOW. I don’t want to die with all my music in me. I want to  let others see who I really am. If I’m too naked, sorry. If you don’t like it, don’t look. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. But damn if I’m going to be silent anymore. Love me, hate me, I really don’t care. I’m not afraid. I’m more afraid of going to my grave having had a life not fully lived. I want to taste more, see more, feel more. I want to be fully alive while I’m still here because one day I won’t be.

I’m going to call this Turtle Liberation Day.