When I awoke this morning, it was still mostly dark out, and I was greeted with a burning in my chest and a metallic taste in my mouth. The ring finger on my right hand was stiff and sore at the first knuckle for a second day in a row- a new sensation to me. My sleep had been good for the last hour, after an early morning prostate blitz woke me in a state of frozen pain and discomfort and left me there until I finally fell off again. Now awake, as I move my legs to get up, my feet tingle when they make contact with the fabric of my comforter- not unlike sliding half-asleep feet on the tall grass of a lawn- and again when I place them on the floor.

Despite the cold in the room, my mind leaps to questions about my mortality, and about my unlived days. A draft of fear floats through me.

It was my intention to rouse in the cold, drafty house before sunrise and to don clothes, sneakers, my knit cap, and a coat, and to get out the door to enjoy the sunrise.

I feed the cats their pre-breakfast in the dawn dark- each, a dollop of wet food. I lock the front door once outside, and then walk, slowly at first to loosen my stiff legs.

It has been a hard last year or so.

I feel lucky I have been able to see and to spend time with my family during COVID. But there have just been other things lost.

And among these lost things has been some of the normal tendencies in my body.

I was glad as I left my block and turned south on Wyoming, and I felt no breeze on my face.

The sky was mostly clear as I walked, and so the early light spread over the Sandias, and lightened the hue of gray above me. Cars shuttled by me as I walked, their occupants part of the community of commuters that were heading for work.

My body has warmed up, so I try to keep a decent pace as my eyes dart about, and my mind wanders.

I am perplexed by the recent breakdowns and symptoms in my body, and I am anxious, thinking of having to face a myriad of disconnected doctors while trying to navigate through the time- and savings-consuming gauntlets of a dysfunctional hospital system.

I am perplexed at why one girl liked me and yet left me, while another didn’t like me and yet kept me around for nearly a decade, only to marry another- and I see the pages of the calendar that fall behind time spent on these two- and I have become olden, and in both cases, discarded.

And I wonder why I didn’t try harder, or expect less, or accept easier, or mingle more, to finally find a home and hearth.

I look forward and see nothing any clearer about my future than the blur that sits behind me, the misfires and mistakes and misperceptions I made that left me alone.

I pass a broken bus stop bench on the sidewalk by the asphalt, and one lone unsmoked cigarette sits in front of it, a stark full white and tan stick on the gray concrete.

And there, as I thought about my concerns and disappointments in my life, a quiet voice pleaded from the recesses in the back of my brain.

“Lord, please don’t forget me.”

Yes, Lord- please don’t.

My eyes mist briefly behind my glasses and I recompose as I continue to move, cars fleeting by, going to definite destinations. The sun is still not over the Sandia mountains to my left, but I see a change in the color of its mass- halfway up, a ray lightens it up.

I continue my walk for a mile south, and then turn around to walk the same path back to my house.

Ahh, the wind was at my back- but not now.

I am warmed up well enough now, though.

There is coffee at the house. I will get home and make the coffee and make some oatmeal for breakfast and then feed the cats before I start work.

I walk expeditiously into the brisk breeze as the cars, more of them, continue to whiz by me. The sky blues more. The morning looks like it will be pretty.

Yes, Lord. Please don’t forget me.