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I'm fifty eight now . . .

What’s on my mind. Well, I never – really ‘never’, by any elastic stretch of the imagination – thought I’d ever be :gulp: fifty eight years old. November 7th 6:46pm 1959.

It’s kind of fun (this is for the kids; you old farts can look at your fingernails and snigger at me) being “Old”. I have stories I can look back on. I have stories to look forward to, also. Kind of a secret, though. Neither the stories I look back on, nor those ahead, are really worth all that much. I’ll be dead a hundred years from now, and the last person to speak my name will, most likely, remember it as someone I owed money to, or fucked over in a relationship, or even better someone they remember ignoring their whole life with kind of a gloat in their voice.

My life doesn’t matter to you. Why should it? It’s mine.

It’s just been my privilege to share it with you. So, in whatever manner you know me? Whatever manner you are in my life? And whatever manner you allow me into yours?

Thanks.

Fifty eight years worth of thanks.

Fifty eight years of never knowing the right move to make, and making a move anyway. Fifty eight years of never knowing the right thing to say, and wanting to, and cringing because I just know — I KNOW – that I said the wrong thing to the person who means so much to me. Fifty eight years of never adequately being able to allow you to be able to show me that you love me too, and both of us fumbling around in the world, fucked up, lost, alone, scared, and pushing our chests out to show we can brave through it.

Fifty eight years of mistakes. Fifty eight years of no instructions. Fifty eight years of ‘…yeah, yeah, I know’.

Okay. That was for the kids.

This next is for those older than me.

It’s not too soon, and not too late, to say thanks for your examples. Some of you are as lost as me. Some even more lost. More lonely, more afraid, and more confused. Thank you, too.

Some of you, by god, actually have it together and can sit back and say to yourself: ‘My GAWD, what a blessed life I’ve had.’ I guess thanks to you too, because you’ve always been there to lend me a helping hand, a kind look, or even just patience with my impertinence, and cocksure mask I hide behind when I’m really, really afraid.

Okay. That’s all I got for now. I’ll shut up.

And happy birthday to my mom, who had me. I called her tonight and let her tell me she’ll talk to me when I’m a year older. She lives for that, and it makes me cry I won’t have that some day. Yeah. I love my mom. And if you tell me you’ve fucked her, I’ll just laugh because everyone knows my dad was an asshole.

Cheers.

Written by Father Luke Monday November 6, 2017