Wisdom? Peace? Loneliness? Death? Anyone who knows me at all is familiar with my angst about age, time passing, unfulfilled dreams, etc. It’s been a constant lament for as long as I can remember. Most often, it only hits me twice a year: on my birthday and on New Year’s Eve. Those are logical occasions at which we take pause to whine about the past, lament how the present sucks and fear what the future holds. What? You don’t do that? It’s just me?

I’ve had more opportunities to contemplate what my future holds over the past year or so. Let’s just say that I re-discovered the irony in one-hit wonder Timbuk 3’s song, ”The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”.

In 2011, I helped my mother recover from a major back surgery, I hurt my own back in the process and then I was fired. So far this year, I remain unemployed, I’m now helping my mother recover from arthroscopic knee surgery (which has not been without complications, by the way) and I’m still trying to get my back better.

All of this has given rise to many tears, Yoko Ono like screams and other frustrating coping strategies on my part. And it has led to me asking some rather difficult and depressing questions. Would you like me to share a couple of them with you? Of course you would, you lovely masochists!

Question #1:  Is this how my life is going to be from now on?

If this is true, then my future is one of constant care-taking of my mother, spotty employment if any at all, financial stress, physical pain and basically no life, no love, nothing. Woo hoo! Now, who wouldn’t want some of that?

Question #2:  What’s going to happen to me if I need care-taking in the future?

I don’t have children, so there’s no hope for sympathetic and loving offspring to take care of dear old Mom. These are the moments when I wish I had wanted children. Then again, I probably would have spawned ungrateful brats who just wanted their inheritance. I don’t have siblings, so I don’t even have anyone to guilt or blackmail into helping me. And finally, if, as Question #1 explores, my life is devoid of love, then there’s no significant other to whom I can look for comfort. So, what then happens to those who have no one?

The images that come to mind when trying to answer that question conjure up scenes from a Dickens novel or talking points from the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns. Or I picture myself fighting off polar bears for the last space on the ice floe and I don’t like my odds. For one, they have sharp teeth and claws while I have well-flossed teeth and short nails. Second, ice = cold and I’m a wuss from California.

So, kids, how’s this for the humor blog you were anticipating, huh? It is said that comedy often comes from tragedy. And while nothing over this past year can be considered tragic, thank goodness, I am, nevertheless, ready for a good, hearty laugh.