diablo
Master Don Juan
I want to start off by saying that the basic idea for this thread came from the end of one of "CHALENGE GUY"s threads. I've elaborated considerably on it, and hope that it might strike a chord with you after reading it.
Take a seat, if you aren't already... then read this through before closing your eyes and visualizing it. Pretend that you're 75 years old - don't make it seem like it's just 75, but focus on the details. While reading this, change the way that you breathe. Tighten your throat up a little, and breathe a little through your mouth and your nose at the same time - so that you wheeze slightly when inhaling, and have to push a little exhaling. Open your mouth a bit - like an old person would. If you start to drool slightly, don't wipe it away. After all, you're 75 and in a nursing home. You've got an IV tube in your wrinkly arm, and you try to smile, feebly, at the female attendant each time she comes to check on you. You can read the aloofness in her eyes, but you don't care - each time she comes, you smile. She's not that pretty, but she's the youngest, prettiest girl you've seen in years. You scratch an old, useless leg - one that once was young, sinewy, and tan. Now, it's gaunt and saggy - freckled with bruises of varying sizes due to your body not taking care of itself like it used to. You're watching TV, and you start to think about what you have to look forward to in the next few weeks. Tuesday night is Bingo Night, maybe you'll see Selma and Frank. They've been your friends for the 3 years you've been living in the nursing home. Your son and his 2 kids have only been to visit twice, and you're starting to make up stories about them to impress the other residents - which isn't too bad because they're doing the same thing themselves.
You rest for a second, still lying there in your bed. Now, you start thinking about your past. 10 years ago you seemed spry enough, you'd just gotten your senior citizen status and joked with your few friends about how you got a discount on your movie tickets. In your heart, you weren't happy about it - you were still thinking back to when you were just a kid, your late teenage years or early adult ones. All of the opportunities you had to do something worth remembering, to meet someone worth remembering. The nights you sat at home alone, with nobody to call and talk to, and nobody to invite you to go out. Shifting your weight to your side, and moving your IV tube safely out of range of the tray of food that's being brought to you by an attendant, you start to think back to why it is you stayed at home in the first place. Why you didn't go out and have a life that was worth discussing. Scared, you suppose. Scared of others judging you, of girls rejecting you, and of guys always being better looking than you. Then, you pause and take a look at yourself in the mirror across the room, underneath the television. You've got a perpetual frown from two lines running from the sides of your mouth to either side of your sunken-in chin. Your nose seems to have gotten bigger, but that's only because your skin has loosened far more than it ever has in the past. Your eyes squint, and begin to hurt from the strain of being focused on one thing for over 10 seconds. You notice the hair in your ears... funny, who would have thought it would poke out like that... Your neck's tendons and muscles hang down, and your ears poke out. Your hair, once a bright color, is now stark white, what's left of it.
So, you think... you were scared as a kid. Scared that you didn't look good enough. Wondering what you could do to make yourself look better. Now look at me, you think... what would the kid who was so terrified of being judged by others think of the old man he's become now? I'd give anything to look like I once did - to have the lines removed, to be able to run for over 30 second without having to stop and gasp for air... You know it's too late for second chances, that you only live once and when it's over, it's over - but you can't help but think that if you could only be young again, just one more time, you would have done things differently. Those empty nights sitting at home alone, pounding away on the computer - they would be gone. No satisfaction was gleaned from them, you only hollowed yourself out. You think back to how you didn't have confidence - you know that if you could do it again, you could find it within yourself to fake that confidence until maybe it became real. Who knows what would have happened if you only started up a conversation with one more person, took one more trip, went to one more place, worked one more job, went out one more night. Your feeble hand raises, fingers clenched, then sags down to the bed below as a tear starts to make it's way down the canyons that your face has become, as you wish for a second chance. Life would be so different, you wouldn't have wasted a Friday night again doing nothing, you wouldn't have let that girl you were so attracted to walk by without doing SOMETHING. But, it's too late. You're just an old man, reflecting on what could have been.
Take a seat, if you aren't already... then read this through before closing your eyes and visualizing it. Pretend that you're 75 years old - don't make it seem like it's just 75, but focus on the details. While reading this, change the way that you breathe. Tighten your throat up a little, and breathe a little through your mouth and your nose at the same time - so that you wheeze slightly when inhaling, and have to push a little exhaling. Open your mouth a bit - like an old person would. If you start to drool slightly, don't wipe it away. After all, you're 75 and in a nursing home. You've got an IV tube in your wrinkly arm, and you try to smile, feebly, at the female attendant each time she comes to check on you. You can read the aloofness in her eyes, but you don't care - each time she comes, you smile. She's not that pretty, but she's the youngest, prettiest girl you've seen in years. You scratch an old, useless leg - one that once was young, sinewy, and tan. Now, it's gaunt and saggy - freckled with bruises of varying sizes due to your body not taking care of itself like it used to. You're watching TV, and you start to think about what you have to look forward to in the next few weeks. Tuesday night is Bingo Night, maybe you'll see Selma and Frank. They've been your friends for the 3 years you've been living in the nursing home. Your son and his 2 kids have only been to visit twice, and you're starting to make up stories about them to impress the other residents - which isn't too bad because they're doing the same thing themselves.
You rest for a second, still lying there in your bed. Now, you start thinking about your past. 10 years ago you seemed spry enough, you'd just gotten your senior citizen status and joked with your few friends about how you got a discount on your movie tickets. In your heart, you weren't happy about it - you were still thinking back to when you were just a kid, your late teenage years or early adult ones. All of the opportunities you had to do something worth remembering, to meet someone worth remembering. The nights you sat at home alone, with nobody to call and talk to, and nobody to invite you to go out. Shifting your weight to your side, and moving your IV tube safely out of range of the tray of food that's being brought to you by an attendant, you start to think back to why it is you stayed at home in the first place. Why you didn't go out and have a life that was worth discussing. Scared, you suppose. Scared of others judging you, of girls rejecting you, and of guys always being better looking than you. Then, you pause and take a look at yourself in the mirror across the room, underneath the television. You've got a perpetual frown from two lines running from the sides of your mouth to either side of your sunken-in chin. Your nose seems to have gotten bigger, but that's only because your skin has loosened far more than it ever has in the past. Your eyes squint, and begin to hurt from the strain of being focused on one thing for over 10 seconds. You notice the hair in your ears... funny, who would have thought it would poke out like that... Your neck's tendons and muscles hang down, and your ears poke out. Your hair, once a bright color, is now stark white, what's left of it.
So, you think... you were scared as a kid. Scared that you didn't look good enough. Wondering what you could do to make yourself look better. Now look at me, you think... what would the kid who was so terrified of being judged by others think of the old man he's become now? I'd give anything to look like I once did - to have the lines removed, to be able to run for over 30 second without having to stop and gasp for air... You know it's too late for second chances, that you only live once and when it's over, it's over - but you can't help but think that if you could only be young again, just one more time, you would have done things differently. Those empty nights sitting at home alone, pounding away on the computer - they would be gone. No satisfaction was gleaned from them, you only hollowed yourself out. You think back to how you didn't have confidence - you know that if you could do it again, you could find it within yourself to fake that confidence until maybe it became real. Who knows what would have happened if you only started up a conversation with one more person, took one more trip, went to one more place, worked one more job, went out one more night. Your feeble hand raises, fingers clenched, then sags down to the bed below as a tear starts to make it's way down the canyons that your face has become, as you wish for a second chance. Life would be so different, you wouldn't have wasted a Friday night again doing nothing, you wouldn't have let that girl you were so attracted to walk by without doing SOMETHING. But, it's too late. You're just an old man, reflecting on what could have been.
