I'm Growing Old. This Was Not the Plan.

I wasn’t supposed to grow old. I was always going to die young of a drug overdose. Or by my own hand. Same thing.

I doubted I would make it to the 27 club, even. By my 23rd birthday I had overdosed a dozen times. After my mom died when I was 24, I held a gun up to my temple, finally done. Instead of pulling the trigger I pushed the plunger down on a heroin-filled syringe. The heroin kept me from killing myself in that moment. In other moments, the heroin was why I wanted to kill myself. But the desire to die predated the drugs. I was 11 for my first half-hearted uninformed suicide attempt.

I progressed through adolescence into adulthood with the knowledge it would all end soon. How liberating to never have to worry about wrinkles, aches and pains, repaying student loans, my credit score, or retirement. I wouldn’t live long enough to face any such grievance.

I lived with abandon, maxing out school loans just to shoot up more heroin and cocaine before dropping out again. Live fast, die young. I never envisioned having a family or settling down. It wasn’t in the cards. I was going to die young, it was fated, predestined. There’s a certain relief in never having to worry about long-term consequences. I vacillated between passive and active suicide strategies, from not wearing my seatbelt while driving erratically to mixing high doses of heroin and klonipin.

Death never came. Instead, I am aging. Looking in the mirror and seeing gray hairs and wrinkles is jarring. I spent 17 of my 31 years craving death. How can I be getting old when I spent most my life wanting to die? I don’t belong in my own life.

The pendulum of give-a-damn has swung hard to the other side, an over-correction. Now I compulsively check my credit score and fret over my millennial inability to purchase a home. I go to the doctor all the time, convinced I couldn’t have escaped those years of injection drug use unscathed. But I did. I spend hours Googling cosmetic procedures that I will never be brave enough to undergo. (Collagen fillers for neck lines, I’m looking at you.) I have tendonitis in my hands that flares up if I do anything laborious. Or type too much in one day. And what about my retirement? Should I open up a Roth IRA? I’m 31, should I have a kid now even though next year I’m starting law school? The clock is ticking! I’m so far behind my peers!

Incredibly improbable catastrophes befell me in rapid succession. Now I see improbable catastrophes lurking around every corner. Preventing future tragedies by controlling all possible variables dominates my life. Check the air in the tires, drive defensively, buy the insurance, exercise, eat healthy, feel suicidally guilty when you don’t, don’t smoke, pay your credit card off weekly, schedule, plan, be prepared for emergencies. I’ve condensed 13 years’ worth of adulting and associated worry into three years. It’s fucking exhausting.

Controlling the variables is impossible during a pandemic. I’m trying to reactivate the radical acceptance of uncertainty that I learned in jail. Occasionally I succeed.

I was a lot more fun when I knew death was near. Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I was just reckless and confused excitement and danger for fun and happiness.

I was 26 before I considered giving life a chance and 28 before I committed to being alive. If suicidality is a spectrum, I never get below a four. These days the thoughts of suicide are fleeting, irrational, no longer all-consuming. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

I created a life worth living, a life with a purpose, surrounded by love. Somehow successful at a career I never imagined, I find myself living a life I never could have predicted. Things are good and that is bizarre.

I still have no fear of death. It is impossible to fear the very thing you sought for years. Every time I fly, I hear 50 Cent’s voice in my head during take-off and landing. “If I die today, I’m happy how my life turned out.” Am I truly satisfied or just so detached I can’t care? To be determined.

“What is your legacy going to be, Morgan?” I hear my mom’s voice in my head, a desperate mother admonishing her strung-out daughter during her final weeks on Earth. These days I’m thinking my legacy is going to be pretty good.

I am restless when static. I dream of a career where I get paid to globe trot and live out of hotels. That’s like getting a new life every few days. And yet I also started dreaming about having a family and a home. I found a partner I hope to grow old with.

Grow old with. What a concept.

Three years into the recognition that it’s happening, I cannot yet accept it. I agonize over every sign of aging. They feel out of place, like I’m looking at someone else. Will it get easier as I adjust or worse as I get noticeably older?

I am a set of contradictory desires and thoughts. But I am alive and want to be alive. I assume that’s a given for most people. Not for me. It’s an accomplishment.

Pardon the emotional choppiness of this piece. It’s not a literary masterpiece. It’s just me trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense.