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The Marvelous Mr. Cundari?

There's a warm feeling of recognition when you're actively being pushed to leave your box of solitude. Are they friends if they're not forcing you to act against your self-imposed guardrails? To me, it means your presence is wanted. Wanted in a way that, without you, their own night would be nothing more than an empty post-shift bar hang. I feel gloomy every time I'm forced to join the rest of the group, especially with a Costco pumpkin pie in my fridge and my recent attachment to the TV show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . Of course, after the intersection of a pint or two of beer and a good song, my gloom turns into a curiosity about what comes next. For a monthly tradition, we'll go to a goth night so we can lurk behind the attractive and young people the International brings in. I'll see a girl or two there and daydream about who they are, what kind of interaction we could have. Nothing sexual for the most part, but a nod to their ability to stand out in a very...
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Quarter to Life


August 3, 2000. 2:22 PM.

Twenty-five years later.

Something about the quarter-life sentiment struck the fear of God in me.

Am I really at my quarter-life point?

My father — three strokes and two heart attacks before fifty. Still hanging in there, somehow.

My father’s father died of a stroke before fifty.

My father’s mother died before forty, of cancer.

I’ve already had open-heart surgery.

Sure, they had their vices: smoking, chewing, sitting around.

I don’t remember my grandfather. I never met my grandmother.

The only biological grandparent I have left is sitting in memory care.

I want veins on my arms and legs. I want clear piss. No acne. A jawline. 

When friends ask me to hike Mount Timpanogos, I don’t want to debate myself.

I don’t want limits anymore. Being active has always been the solution to everything, so why the hell have I avoided it?

I want to feel better. Look better. Live better. I want sex to be better. I just want to be better.

The uncertainty of what’s ahead flipped a switch in me — I fell behind.

Maybe I won’t reach fifty. Twenty-five years is plenty of time to die, but it’s also plenty of time to do something. To make this life matter.

I don’t believe in a next one. Never have. Never will.

I just don’t understand why I pissed away the first part of mine. No more.

“A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”

― H.L. Mencken