Bonus Life, an essay

 A Vocation

At some level I really am one of those people who feel they have been given a second chance in life. I think of this as Bonus Time. The fact that this is bonus time makes it both more treasured and more reckless simultaneously. I have used this time as soon as I was again ambulatory to pursue the most important calling in life which is really a who more than a what. After years of this very taxing work, I now suffer uneasily with an abiding sense of having burned too many bridges, jumped into too many rabbit holes, shot one too many arrows at the sun in my headlong search for “her”. My own special PTSD, an occupational hazard if there ever were one. I have paid the price that I always knew was due without complaint or protest remaining focused and steadfast in what is most important and meaningful to me in this life of mine. Each considered effort requires herculean expenditures of energy and I can feel with each effort years off of my life accordingly deduct from my natural allotment with it all only to be multiplied by the ensuing, inevitable  agonies that accompany such failures of what I would refer to as truly momentous proportions. There are no disasters worse than disasters of the heart. Lovers, maniacs and widowers know what I'm talking about here. There is no time to indulge in pity there are vast strides of space time to cover yet and best case scenario merely a few decades to do so. It is not so easy a thing that I do. Few humans have the oddly eclectic skillset that lends itself to this unique work. Two of the most difficult things are not what might obviously jump to mind, I'd bet. Dealing with repeated, crushing, abject  failure as well as facing nearly universal criticism from everyone in my life and society et all. Apparently, my work violates some natural law I never got the memo on or maybe was never written down yet exists like a veritable lock stitch in the social fabric.

My bad.

I do not indulge in remorse but I am tired and beyond ready for retirement - but , alas, in this work one either succeeds or dies trying , there is no such thing as retirement.