My Not in this Lifetime Five

I'm a fairly optimistic guy. “Never” is a word I don't use lightly, because very few things are certain in this life. There are things I haven't done, but it remains to be seen if they're things I haven't done yet or things I never will. At 35, I am aware that the peak years of my life are behind me, that should I refer to myself as an adult I can no longer accurately preface that with the word “young”. I feel like a kid, and I certainly act like a kid, but the wrinkled knuckles and thinning, receding hair on my head tell a very different story. Maybe someday I will make it to Italy, or at the very least to some of the historic sights in our own country West and South of the coast I've clung to. My dad got married at 39 and had his only son five years later; anything is possible. I'm not sure what my future holds. And yet, it's safe to say My Five items listed below will not take place in this lifetime. These certainly aren't the only five things I'll never do, nor are they listed in any particular order:

1) List 100 things I'll never do in order of mathematical certainty:
I might as well get this one out of the way first. I'm sure I could think of 100, but I'd go insane trying to sort them. One thing I will do is link back to this post if I end up disproving this in a few months.

2) Go skydiving or bungee jumping:
I'm not a big fan of heights, despite my fourth grade foray on to a second story ledge or the countless trees I climbed in my childhood after falling off a stump at the age of five and ripping my face open on a shard of glass leaving a permanent scar. I've flown only twice, and though everything went fine except for a little turbulence and my mistakenly thinking a wing was falling apart when a flap moved, I haven't been back on a plane since college. Back when a friend was living in Europe he invited me to visit, but it was less than a year after 911 so I was really not inclined to take my chances. I've always dreamed of a honeymoon in Italy, particularly Venice, so someday I might take a chance and get on a plane again. The risk is considerably less than intentionally jumping from a great height. Cord or no cord, parachute or no parachute, it's just an invitation for disaster, especially for someone with my trademark bad luck.

3) Travel to the moon:
From the Earth to the Moon fascinated me. I was in awe of everything, and while the changing styles and tonal shifts from episode to episode kept each one a fresh and unique mini-movie, the overarching sense of science fact was continuous and inspiring. Every time I heard JFK's “We choose to go to the moon!” speech I was inspired. He didn't live to see it, but we did it. It was real. It was a huge undertaking, expensive, and not without human sacrifice, but the seemingly impossible was accomplished. I knew some of the story, while a lot was new to me, including the fact that it all began and ended before I was even born. Only 12 men have walked on the moon, and no one has been back there since 1972. It's something that shouldn't be possible, from generating enough force to propel a craft out of Earth's atmosphere to having suits protect men in a vacuum. I've gone through phases in which just driving a half hour to my job was a challenge. I'd love to walk on the moon, but the suits would be even more claustrophobic than the spacecraft. It'd be nice to be famous too. I'd love to be famous for something someday, though nothing major. Just get my name into recorded history and let me fade back into a quiet life. I don't know if I ever will achieve a few minutes of fame, but I'm pretty sure I won't get to the moon. I'm satisfied when I at least get decent photos of it.



4) Intentionally take the life of another human being:
One good thing about getting old is that I'll never get drafted now(he typed, instantly jinxing himself). I don't have it in me to kill under any circumstances, and for the most part that's a good thing, especially in civilized society. An old classmate from my middle school recently reconnected with me online. His name was familiar although I had to consult a yearbook to confirm who he was. In our correspondence as we caught up on the past 20+ years, he apologized for giving me a hard time in Mr. So&So's music class. I had no idea what he was talking about. I know I was wildly unpopular in that school, and that even my “friends” picked on me, but I never kept a list of specific offenders. Granted, things like the guy who punched me in the stomach several times or the kids who tried to force feed me poison berries are going to stick. But all the other dumb kid stuff like playing keepaway is just one massive jumble. It made me realize that I don't live in the past as much as I think I do, and that may be why I'm more functional and well-adjusted than I technically should be. I wonder if other people remember picking on me, and if they feel bad about it. I don't fully remember this kid, and have vague memories of him and another kid laughing at my drawings, so maybe that's what he was referring to. I took it as a sincere apology, and not “I hope we didn't make you into a serial killer”.

5) Hook up with Denise Richards:
Again, like the moon, I want to go to there. Sure, she's a little older, and has kids, but she's still gorgeous, and after listening to an interview she had with Howard Stern earlier this year, I was even more impressed with her candid, down-to-Earth demeanor. She was honest and held nothing back, yet in her delivery she came across kind of classy, because nothing she talked about was a big deal. But we don't travel in the same circles, or live in the same area, or have remotely comparable salaries. I can't see any situation in which our paths would cross and she'd think a nice but nerdy blogger would be a good follow-up to Sheen, Stamos, or Sambora. I have no delusions that I have a shot just because one of her earliest roles was as a love interest for Jimmy Olsen on an episode of Lois & Clark and I'm a geek with a camera too. I'll never star with her and Neve Campbell in a remake of Wild Things. And I'm not just writing stuff now because I think I'll create some kind of positive jinx and twist probability so the opposite comes true. I'm not.

Honest.

And now...I wait....