Knackered Sorts His Marbles with Benzos 

   I glanced at the calendar as I came down the hallway this morning and what I saw made my legs tremble more than they usually do at this time of the day.  It’s bad enough that the whole week starts with April Fools’ Day.  But, penciled in was a hamster wheel of stuff, none of which I really wanted to deal with.  My therapy appointment on Wednesday would be no big deal.  She seems to be the only one in the mental health department who likes me any more.  But in front and back of Wednesday lies some more serious stuff.  Grown up stuff.  We have to see our financial people for a planning meeting on Thursday.  We won’t actually have to go anywhere.  In the digital age, it’s just a matter of booting up another zoom call.  But before the actual planning meeting starts we have to plan for the planning meeting.

   The whole thing makes me wish that I had stayed perpetually twelve.  That was a good year.  

   All this financial stuff, at our stage of life, is basically like playing marbles was back in that time.  You throw all your marbles on the table and a lot of them roll off.  Those are like highs and lows of the stock market.  You may get some of them back, but you just really never know.  The ones left on the table are the ones that you have to ‘divvy’ up. They'll have to go back in different bags, but there are lots of rules as to what you can do with them and when it will all happen.  And again, we’re at that point where you have to use some of them during certain times because the ‘Wizard’ told you so. 

   The main thing to remember is that your marbles have to last longer than you do. If they don’t you’re a loser, and grownups can’t afford to be losers when so much is riding on your marbles.  I guess that could apply to the ones floating around in your head as well.

   The key to success in the meeting with the financial folk is that you need to decide in 15 minutes or so, what you’re going to be doing every year, every tax payment, every reno project on the house before your zoom time expires.  Yes, I really don’t want to lose all my marbles before I expire.  Hence the planning before the planning meeting.  

   So we’ll have to sit down and make some decisions.  That’s another thing I hate about being a grown up.  The kitchen looks like it’s a gut job and the bathroom needs help as well. The HVAC system never made it through the cold spell in February and we had to throw some of this year’s marbles into the ring on that one. 

That’s already out of the way.  But what are we going to do and how many marbles do we want to hand out every year for the near future?  The whole thing makes me dizzy and gives me a worse headache than getting the diazepam out of my system.  And there’s really no end in sight on that whole thing yet.  

  Somehow we’ll figure it out.  Seems like we always do.  Most of it is left up to my wife, the financial magnate of the family.  But for her skills, I’d be standing in the mall with a Styrofoam coffee cup in one hand and a sign hanging around my neck.  My biggest goal for the future is being able to throw my last empty prescription bottle for this junk in the recycling bin.  Actually a midnight burning and backyard burial ritual would probably be best.  Taper on and plan ahead friends.  And, by all means hang onto your marbles in the process.