My Dilemma

I find myself at a dilemma. I turned seventy this last April 2, and I did not want that to happen. I mean I had rather have turned seventy rather than the alternative, but I have a problem with that number. Throughout my life I have, not one, been concerned with whatever birthday was coming up. The dreaded forty didn't faze me one damn bit. Neither did fifty or sixty. But seventy, ah, that is a different story. Even the sound of that word is different that all the others. Start counting in tens, you know, ten, twenty, thirty, etc. As you do call out the numbers count the syllables in each one. All of the numbers have two syllables except for the number seventy, which has three. That alone is cause for considerable concern. It is an odd number in a sequence of numbers from ten to a hundred. Nine numbers with two syllables, one with three. What do you suppose Dan Brown would do with that scenario? Why he'd make a blockbuster mega novel out of it, although the movie wouldn't do it justice. Do they ever?

Back to my dilemma. I have dreaded this number for some time. Why? Just another number, right? Wrong. I've already proven that it is not just another number. Seventy is different. I imagine between the numbers seventy and eighty I shall die. I hope painlessly, but I have that feeling. What should I do, just go with the flow and accept that I have lived much longer than I ever thought I would? In other words give up. Should I accept that my life is nearing its run and not worry myself all that much about it?

I don't believe I can just sit back and wait on death. There is something growing inside me that is telling me to go out with a bang, not a whimper. What can I do to facilitate that yearning? I can't climb Mt. Everest, or any physical things which would get me noticed and hailed as I spit in the face of death. No, I am physically not capable of such heroic feats

But I can write. And saying that brings me back to my dilemma. I've stopped writing novels within the last two weeks. That is saying something, because I am always writing novels. I have quite a few novels started and not finished. I don't want to finish them. Not now. I have the need for an explosive new novel. I want that because I still, at this late date, haven't completely given up on writing that novel that will take over the best seller spot in The New York Times, not that it is such a wonderful newspaper anymore, but because in the literary sense it is still considered at the top of the heap.

So! I sit here trying to think about that elusive novel I need to write. Why not take the number seventy and just go with it? I don't know. I will give it some thought