This Is the Way

It’s getting a little difficult keeping track of all the different ways I could die.

As a child, teenager, and even through a good chunk of my twenties, I believed I was bulletproof. I swallowed thumbtacks and chicken bones (long stories, those two), shook off colds, sprains, and broken bones as though they were nothing. I could run for miles at a time and enjoy the feeling of walking home drenched in sweat. I could burn the candle at both ends, grab a couple hours of sleep and wake up ready to do it all over again.

Those were heady, hearty days.

Now, in the latter part of my thirties and with a birthday around the corner, I must accept a new reality: threats exist everywhere.

Some are internal. My own body has the potential of becoming a turncoat. It’s the cycle of life, I guess. As a result, I now do things I never thought would be such a concern when I was younger. Things like eating vegetables, consuming vitamins, supplements, and taking hard looks at food labels.

Other threats are external. In the 80s, AIDS was the bogeyman and there were all kinds of wild myths and rumors about how it could be contracted. Over 20 years later, though, AIDS is barely mentioned. It’s still out there, but has fallen a few notches on the list of urgent national issues. Who needs AIDS when there’s Kim Jong Il?

Last week, I read that an asteroid will come so close to Earth we’ll be able to see it without a telescope in 2029. There are mixed opinions on whether the rock will miss us entirely since there is a 1 in 500 chance of it striking our planet. I found it somewhat humorous when an astronomer noted that although the odds were slim, they had never been worse. Yet another way I could die.

In recent years, I’ve been introduced to flesh-eating bacteria, SARS, Avian Flu. Now we have Swine Flu. Funny how something you’d never heard of before can quickly become all you hear about no matter where you turn. I suppose I already knew pigs could get sick. I didn’t know they could pass viruses on to humans. This knowledge doesn’t particularly improve my quality of life. It mostly means reading emails from University Health Services telling me to wash my hands and stay home if I’m sick. I suppose I knew that already, too, but I’ll play along.

I try to take all these health threats seriously, but with each new potential epidemic, a part of me grows a little more cynical. Kind of like that old, hardened Gulf Coast resident who knows a hurricane is coming but refuses to leave because they’ve lived through so many others.

It’s been a while, so maybe we’re due an epidemic. Or pandemic. I just can’t bring myself to believe that the way the world ends is not with a bang, but a sneeze.