Goodbye Sweet Heath

heath ledger is dead.

i had initially intended on “relaunching” my blog today (on the eve of my 29th year) with a post about the 35th anniversary of legalized abortion. maybe with a remark about how i might go out and celebrate the occasion by getting someone pregnant and then paying for their abortion.

but now i think this would be in bad taste…to be talking about abortion when heath ledger’s untimely passing clearly affects us all a lot more.

as some of you are well aware, the last 6 months have been a stressful and uncertain time for me and my family (which, for the most part, explains my prolonged absence from posting to this blog).

thankfully, all of us are still alive and kicking, if not a little worse for wear.

but, if anything, these last few months (and to a lesser extent today’s events — heath’s passing, not the anniversary of legal abortion…though i suppose that also, depending on your position, might apply) have only served to reinforce my belief that life is short.

nobody, save for a few exceptions (e.g. people who commit suicide, psychics, people on death row who are out of appeals, people who click those ad banners that promise to tell you when you’ll die) knows when their time will be up.

people talk all the time about trying to live for today, and not having any regrets about how they live their life. and generally speaking, i think this is sound advice (logic such as it’s okay to drink and drive because i could just as easily be killed in a car wreck in the back seat of a cab notwithstanding).

so, here i sit on the verge of 29 the big 3-0 right around the corner. i am a law school dropout, i have no steady source of income, by this time next year i will pretty much be the only one of my closest friends who is not married…

and yet, i’m happy (though a job would be nice).

i have chosen a path that is not for some people, but it suits me well.

one of the reasons i dropped out of law school (besides my being generally miserable) can, in part, be attributed to my post 9/11 reflections in the days and weeks that passed as I, along with everyone else, got back to their “normal” routine.

i considered what might have been had i seen law school through to its inevitable conclusion and found myself working in some cube one morning only to be faced with a situation where the best option available was to jump out of a window on the 85th floor…

a pretty shitty way to go.

unfortunately, you usually don’t have any say over how you go. but what you can control is how you live.

a lot has changed in the 6 plus years that have passed since that tuesday morning (went to film school, got my mfa, moved out to la), but i can say with certainty that the decision i made in the weeks that followed was for the best.

who knows, maybe i’ll end up a struggling writer, cynical and jaded, pining for the financial security of the life i gave up.

but, if i were to die tomorrow (which, being my birthday, would be both ironic and unfortunate — since i’m not really celebrating until this weekend) i would do so with but a few regrets. regrets about what i have not yet been able to accomplish on this path i have chosen, as opposed to regrets about my unwillingness to take this path…