Too old to die young

Not original --- I heard that title in a song about it last night. But it did make me think.  See, whenever I think about dying young, I remember Marilyn Monroe. Now plenty of people die young, but that's the first one that really hit me. We were living in Bremerhaven, Germany in August of 1962. We'd been there a year, I was just about to turn 12 and would be starting 7th grade. I showed up for Bible School at the base chapel and somebody told me that Marilyn Monroe had killed herself. I was in immediate shock.

I loved Marilyn. I wanted to be Marilyn. Even though 36 did seem pretty old to me (she was born in the same year as my father, 1926) anybody who could look that good in a swim suit, sound that amazing with her voice, and be so famous, couldn't be actually OLD. I was appalled and fascinated that a woman who had everything, would take her own life. Actually, the whole idea of suicide blew me away. It was my first real encounter with it.

So Marilyn Monroe was imprinted on my brain as the ultimate in early, tragic deaths. Not too long after that, when I got to be 13 or 14, quit Sunday School and Girl Scouts, started drooling over boys and listening to "Surfer Girl" over and over on my little record player, and sneaking smokes in the dugout and beer at the pizza joint (no drinking age in Germany) --- I came to the inescapable conclusion that I was destined to die young. Not suicide, no sir. Even with all my hyper-dramatic tendencies, I didn't fancy doing myself in. No, it just seemed to me that Fate had my number and it was 23. I announced it to the world, repeatedly. Whether it was jokingly when I was being outrageous with my friends in the cemetery, or morosely when I was drunk and depressed, I clung to the script. I would be dead at 23. Might as well enjoy life now, cause it just wouldn't last.

It colored much of my behavior during my teens. I used to justify, at least to myself, all sorts of misdeeds and scrapes. If I got punished for something, I could console myself with fantasies of how  awful they would feel after I was dead. I cut a tragic figure, in my own mind, or embraced the derring-do of a character in a novel, willing to take risks for principles or fun, either one, as long as the adrenaline was there.

Needless to say, I didn't die. If I had lived a century earlier, I might well have, since my first pregnancy, at 23, resulted in a birth that could have killed me without medical intervention. But I was actually just past 24 when he was born. No, I didn't die. If there were true justice in the world, I should have. I put myself in ridiculous, dangerous situations so many times, treated drinking and driving like a competitive sport, and generally acted like a ninny until I was 30 years old.

So now I'm in my 60s and all settled down. Been sober much longer than I drank. Don't much like driving at night, let alone under the influence of so much as allergy pills. And not looking to check out any time soon.

The saying goes that you should die young and leave a good-looking corpse. I'm afraid my corpse will show my age --- extra pounds, wrinkles, gray hair and all. But it'll be well used. I'm happy that I thwarted my adolescent penchant for high drama and stayed alive long enough to believe in myself and be grateful. Marilyn Monroe, for all her beauty and fame, didn't seem to have what I have now. My little life here in Raleigh, with my spoils-me-rotten wife, my poor demented Mommy, and an assortment of domestic critters, is neither dramatic nor glamorous. But it's intensely satisfying and I'm glad I'm too old to die young.