I’ve been grieving my impending demise. No indication of when – just the math of it. So much time behind me now, so little ahead.

I think of my uncle Wendell, how he once said he was content to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t know if that was true. He did something. But there’s so much I want to do, and the gap between want and time left – that’s the source of my greatest frustration. My own blocks, creative or otherwise, stopping me from maximizing what remains.

How can anyone be idle? I have hundreds of unread books in this house. I haven’t biked or walked across Canada yet. There was a plan to drive across the US before it turned to fascism – best to wait now. I see apartment rentals in Thailand, cheap ones. Six months working there, maybe. DAK coffee in Germany, run by a couple from Montreal – might be worth visiting. And all the work here: perennial garden to plant, marathons to train for, muscles to build, meals to create, stories to write. The list breeds faster than I can cross things off.

We’re not so different from flowers, I think – just cursed with a big fancy brain. The cycle is the same: seed, growth, bloom, wilt. But does a flower have any sense of time? Does it feel the ache when companions disappear with the seasons? Does it fear its own wilting?

There’s a cruelty in understanding our limits. Why evolve this way? Why not give us a choice – go when you’re ready, not by surprise or slow withering. Of course there are cruel people we’d wish gone quickly, but for most of us, choice would make sense.

I know what I’d choose. I’d wait until every book was read, every place visited, every story told. Then I might rest.

But that’s not the deal we’re given. The hourglass drains regardless.

Wendell is gone now. I never asked him if he’d truly made peace with his small world, or if he was just too tired to keep reaching. I think about him in that chair, watching his TV, and wonder if he found something I’m still missing. Or if he simply ran out of time before finishing his own list.