xtcian

Interesting post. Particularly this morning, since my nephew (16 years old) committed suicide last night. I'm still in shock. What's with all the death these days?

Perhaps I've been blessed with a good life (in fact, I know I have), but I can't think of anything that I've experienced or done that would hasten my death. I'm sort of a low-risk kind of gal.

I don't know about years, but the Pi Phi formal in High Point knocked off a good month or so.

My Krispy Kreme addiction is not helping.

Tanya, sorry to hear about your family's loss.

As for Lay, I'd like to think that one of the many he defrauded paid a visit to his house hours before his death and slipped an untraceable little additive into his evening cocktail, thus hastening his march into the light.

No sympathy for Marshall. Hard to feel bad when the wealthy waste all their energy fighting over vast sums of money I cannot comprehend. Perhaps if he was a better son, Anna (I ain't sayin she's a gold digger) Nicole would have been left out in the cold.

As for Ramsey, maybe she'll get to join the four-top table where her daughter and O.J.'s wife are seated (saving the 4th seat for Orenthal James himself), so that the mom, and later "The Juice", can explain to their deceased loved ones how they lived their lives looking for the "real killers".

Bungee jumping, lack of sleep and an unhealthy fear of spiders may have shaved years off of my life.

Interesting post. My dad and I have been having discussions about my grandmother lately, who's 95 and lives in a retirement community. She's about as healthy as one could hope to be at that age: she's relatively free of pain, requires minimal assistance with activities of daily living, reads voraciously and could probably balance her checkbook faster than her 66-year old son (my dad). And yet she's absolutely miserable. For her, it's all about the things she used to be able to do, the places she used to be able to go, the complete independence she used to have, etc. Even though to many people she seems "lucky" to have lived so long and to be in such great shape, she clearly doesn't see it that way.

Which makes my dad and me wonder (and which seems to be the topic of today's post): just how long should one live? People often comment on lives cut prematurely short - but is it possible to live too long?

P.S. Tanya - such sad news. My sympathies to you and your family for your loss.

Tanya - how awful. I am so sorry.

I am a chronic worrier, and I am sure all the worrying over the years will lead to an early death, ESPECIALLY all the worrying I do over my daughter.

Several members of my family have acted as caretakers for relatives who had Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and I think that the caretaking itself shaves off many years and adds a lot of wear and tear to a life.

I'm pretty sure I shaved off an extra year or two in 1991. It was my last year in high school and my dad died that Feb. in a car accident. I started my freshman year at Carolina that fall and I was in a very self-destructive phase. When I think about all of the brain cells I smoke and drank away, it makes me want to cry. I just wish I had been able to see that my "partying" was a reaction to losing my dad. I regret wasting that year and most of my time at UNC. I think back about that scared, naive girl that was me and I grieve for her. I would love to have those years back and take advantage of the education I was offered. I also wish I had had someone call me out on my bad behavior and that I figured out sooner when a boy asks you to come see his stereo at a mixer, that isn't really what he means. Alas.

Not using sunblock when I was a teenager. I live in fear of melanoma now.

(Tanya, my heart goes out to you.)

..Last night, talking 'bout last night....

Like Laurie, I'm a chronic worrier--I try to take the edge off with running, but even so, I all too often find myself in a tailspin of agitation about things I can't control. Since February, my eleven-year-old dog has been sick with one thing after another, and in addition to trying every vet and medication and food and curative that the brain trust can think of, I've also been trying to prepare myself for losing him, since it's an inevitability, after all. The thing is, there's no adequate preparation for loss or hardship, and that was brought home to me most piercingly when my husband got sick four years ago with a severe episode of ulcerative colitis that hospitalized him. After four weeks of ineffective treatments, his colon perforated, requiring emergency removal. Two more surgeries and many medications later, he's pretty healthy (I literally just knocked wood). And even thinking about that period of time makes my heart pound faster and my hands shake. So, okay, I'll go out for a walk, maybe counteracting some of that cortisol.

Tanya, I wish you and yours strength.

Tanya, I am so very sorry for your loss. Unimaginable.

As for me, I'm with Mary on the suntanning stuff as a kid and teen, but (sigh) I still indulge in a bit of tanning in my 50s. It just feels so damn good to soak up that warm sun; I call it my last remaining vice. (I do use sunscreen and have a skin check every year.) In my misspent 20s I drank too much, so I prolly killed off a zillion brain cells. My chronic anxiety disorder and depression are sure to have raised my cortisol levels and caused damage to my arteries, although thanks to meds and therapy I'm much more resilient and happier now. (Ian, I'll match your Celexa and raise you a Lexapro and a Wellbutrin, not to mention the ever-present Xanax.) 8-)

my good friend's mysterious death in 1993, which left her circle of friends shocked, sober and guessing for years...and me convinced that i was seeing her ghost every night. tanya my heart goes out to you and your family.

2 years ago I became older than my Dad was when he died. I always have had this fear in my head that for some reason I would die when I reached his age. Didn't happen.

On a lighter note, about 3 years ago when our older son was 3, my wife was telling me of an article she read that concluded that each male child statistcally takes 3 years off a mother's life. As if on cue, he came running into the room and started slapping her on the butt, yelling "fat mommy, fat mommy, fat mommy". I figured that was good for about 6 weeks off her life right there.

Oh and Ken Lay - he's not dead, he's in Mexico and there is some dead homeless guy that died in his house. I want to see some dental records or I will continue to believe that.

I regret not explaining to my sister why I always had a really cool stereo.

Great timing on this question. I wish I had realized, before this year, that ADD was not just some bullshit excuse that my parents, doctors, and teachers, had used for not being able to get me to act the way they wanted me to.

Had I been working with a coach over the last five years, I could have saved my family and my psyche a lot of stress. While the rest of the world needs motivation to overcome their fears and insecurities, my ADD mind keeps jumping into the wood chipper, convinced that I will find a solution to the metal blades on my next trip through. I will always be tenacious, but now I know how much I need a third party to tap me on the shoulder when it's time to switch challenges.

Mistake:Thinking that "trying harder" and "working harder" are always the answer.
Cost: Five Years

The time I've already chopped off of the end of my life through stress, poor diet, the college years, a rotten marriage (now over), etc., is so huge that I am amazed each morning that I'm still alive. Eating better, addressing emotional issues in therapy, trying to get a handle on stress and, most importantly, becoming a lot less self-centered have, I hope, reversed the trend and added a few precious days/months/years back on.

I will join Anne and Mary with not only the lack of sunscreen, but unfettered use of baby oil while laying out on my parents' tin roof as a young gal. Boy, it got hot up there.

Plus, the uncontrolled drinking from age 15 to 25. I figure I used a couple of my limited calls to my guardian angel during that time period when I got behind the wheel when I should not have. So, I think I have shaved a couple of years off because I won't have as many guardian angel calls left. But I am a lot more responsible these days.

Promiscuous (sp?) sex / drinking too much. I had a hysterectomy due to carcinoma in situ on my cervix, which is because of a strain of HPV that my body can't seem to clear. (It is estimated that 80% of people contract some strain of sexually tranmitted HPV at some point in his/her life, but most people do not have the problems I am having. Their bodies seem to clear or supress the virus.)

Now that my cervix's gone, there are "severe changes" to what's left (my upper vagina). Hope to never get invasive cancer, but scared shitless right now. (This scenario could have happened even if I hadn't been a bit wild while drunk many years ago and had only one partner ever, but the guilt I feel right now is terrible.)

"Twenty years of fast living -- there's just not much left, and my kids are all screwed up. Don't do what I have done."

-- NC, Mexico, 1967

Tanya- very sorry for your loss. My uncle committed suicide several years ago and I still shake my head in disbelief. We never saw it coming.

I often wonder about this topic as it relates to our older generations. Yes, people are living longer today but this age group consists of the baby boomers and the "greatest generation". Did they endure the same pace of life that we do today?

We have turned into a Sanka Society (I just made this up) where everything has to be instantaneous. You can't get away from work anymore. Email, cell phones. Everyone knows where you are. This is taking a toll and we don't even know it.

College drinking, smoking, bad diet, lack of exercise, stress, over medication, etc etc. Maybe it adds up. Maybe it doesn't.

I've seen a lot of people in excellent health get struck down by cancer, heart problems and strokes. It doesn't make any sense to me. If it did- I guess we wouldn't worry about it!

Sorry for the rambling message.

I like "Sanka Society". Unfortunately nobody under 35 knows what your talking about.

Soooo, tell me about the stereo Brother. I had a purple piece of shit jam box and you had speakers taller than Spud Webb.

I did get a jeep while you had the wagon.

Ian, will you tell us your answer?

Ian,

Pierce Marshall was being sued by Anna Nicole for money, not the other way around. He lost a technical juridiction issue in front of the SCOTUS. He still had posession of all of the money.

Indeed, that's true. My slip-up.