Looking back on the last couple of eventful years, that brought changes to my life.

For a long time I had been modestly slicking the wonderful cherries from the vanilla cherry ice cream pot and it looked as if the creamy murky sweet paradise might go on forever. But see now, the pot was getting empty, and below the last and thinning layer of vanilla and cherries lurked the empty paper bottom. This was scary and caused panic. My run for the last cherries was on.

When I was 45, I realized that my health was going down. For the first time, I needed reading glasses. At work, I felt terribly tired, and tried all kinds of over-the-counter metabolizing drugs, plus the occasional strong coffee to keep me going. Not long, and I was diagnosed with diabetes. First I didn’t know what it was. But gradually I realized my previous strength, enthusiasm and commitment at work were seeping away – being surrounded by self-inflated managers of mediocre intelligence (style ‘Dilbert’) didn’t always help. Houston, TX, in the first am-BUSH-ed years of the 21st century, proved to be at the same time a wonderful open and terribly spiritually dull place, a haystack of beautiful Asian and Latino girls, embedded in the total flatness of the so-called American Way of (suburbian) Life.

To overcome feelings of depression and tiredness, I did more sports and meditation, planted trees in the yard, built a patio, dug French ‘liberty’ drains around the house to cater for the next hurricane, and did my bit of writing. I terminexed fireant colonies,
planted hibiscus and gardenias, cut and edged the lawn twice a week. I tried acupuncture, and all kinds of massage. These things helped, but not enough. Then I jumped into all kinds of adventures, mainly to generate fun, trying to keep the spirit up.

For a while, my motorcycle kept me out off depression, and I'll never forget my forays through Southern Texas before sunrise, and the lovely Matagorda.

But on cold winterdays, motorcycling is challenging even in that generally warm southern state. Some illicit things I always wanted to try, gradually became part of my life. Getting fond of multiple sexual relationsships is called 'sex addiction' by some. It's a crude simplification, I guess. There is nothing more captivating then the complex emotional pirouettes between man and woman. These can be hammer-and chisel style (=commercial sex), or a grand opera of love and emotion. Be it as it may, it's an entertaining and, yes, addictive, game that leads to uncertain and often undesirable outcomes.

I finally met, after many wrong girls, the wrongest girl of alls, some kind of a modern Geisha. She was crazy for sex, and knew too many ways to turn me on. Her sexuality was subtle, but simply outrageous. It certainly combined different elements of magic (black? white, multi-colored?) During our hottest weeks, it was sex before going to work, sex at lunch time, and sex in the park. Though endowed with certain qualities indeed, she eventually guided me deeper into my inner swamplands. My depression and diabetes became better, but everything else got worse.

I hadn't realized, that by following my ‘freedom,’ I gradually damaged, even risked my family whilst depleting my wallet. Too late I saw the many dangers threatening my family’s well-being and work achievements. With the bad spirit out off the bottle, I had fallen into the ring of fire, vortexed by crazy love, passion, illusions, and a certain dreamy denial of reality.

When I woke up it was almost too late. The new creepy big boss at work wanted to kick me out off my job. He was one of those guys that are liked by nobody, feared by all, and own one crucial, decisive quality: of watching the situation carefully, like a chameleon, ready to devour something and to increase his ugly self. He also hated foreigners. I disliked that false, sneaky, creepy, hypocritical Bushoid bastard, the kind of weird person one can only find in corporate WASP America.

It seemed I had run out of luck. Then I was offered a job in Malaysia. I packed up my stuff, separated from my wife (she had given up on me), and my Geisha (she said she couldn’t follow me, then. Perhaps she had switched to another payroll already).

I went on my own to a distant land, where I knew nobody, with a few suitcases in my hand. At first it felt like another sleazy illicit paradise, act II following act I. The fox had found the chicken stalls. I tried every domestic girl of every local race and style. Only sometimes, I missed my kids.

But sexual joys do flatten out quickly, and there isn’t much substance left, when it’s all over, and the bed feels cold and only half-occupied. Then, finally, I met the Mrs. Right. It proved to be the turning point of my life. If I hadn’t come to Sarawak (Borneo, Malaysia), and somehow met the right woman who brutally straightened me out, I would have been lost for good. My previous marriage was already broken at that time, and that Kayan girl, descending from a fierce warrior tribe, taught me a decent, good life right back from basics. Only she had the personal power, the deep love, and granitic perseverance to do this task for me.

I don’t believe in men who claim to be saved by religion. Most of them are liars, anyhow. It’s the woman who can bend the man in the right or wrong sense. In brief, my headhunter girl brought me back to my good luck, and I felt our good old family spirit, lost since Grandma’s death in 1976, coming back to my wrecked life. I’ll never be able to thank Maureen enough for what she had done for me. She prevented my mid-life crises spilling over into an end-life crisis. I owe her my life.

It was hard, but I learnt to drink water instead of beer, and to think about my kids instead of following every pretty pair of legs around in town. Having done whatever was 'bad,' I finally convinced myself about a right conduct of life – if anything good came out of this mess, it is this particular solid certainty about what is good and bad, whilst lacking the slightest regrets for the ‘freedom’ of my previous exploits. No need any longer to pretend. Experience always trumps ideas and beliefs.

I don’t feel threatened by life any longer. Rich or poor, we are slipping toward a final reality called death. In this unavoidable process the ‘how’ can matter more than the ‘what’. As I will loose, one uncertain day, anything of material substance, why shouldn’t I give up certain life style elements a little earlier, and with grace?

These days, I seek financial independence, shop less, and save more. I say good-bye to the rat-race for money and excessive sensual enjoyment, and embrace instead the beauty of nature, and my spiritual roots. I paid back my mortgages and other depth, and opted for a healthier life style.

I allow myself more frequent breaks at work, whilst avoiding the big stress. Modern corporate life is a comedy anyhow, only a fool can take that creepy stuff serious. They try to squeeze the best out off you, without giving any commitments or job garanties. There isn’t much of honor, courage, empathy or chivalry left. It’s all about money, and the bosses are only bosses, because they are full of themselves, and often lack the slightest bid of critical self-consciousness.

I’m looking ahead for retirement, with a whole set of new fun and business ideas in my head. The sooner they kick me out off my corporate job, the better. My only wish is that I can live on for another few good years, surrounded by my loved ones.

Could old age be good to me? It might, if I manage to go on with vigor, courage, patience, and humor. There may be some treasures waiting to be discovered. If happiness in youth is about "more", happiness for aging persons may be about "less". If youth is about doing, age is about being.

About forty years ago, my family used to own a little house located in an alpine village. It was a simple life, then, but some people knew how to enjoy it. In particular, there lived an old couple, seen sitting outside on their simple wooden balcony, and enjoying the fresh evening air that smelled the hay of fall. One evening, I was quite young then, I remember my old Grandma pointing to the couple.

“They know what good life is about,” said Grandma, and nodded to me with her witty smile.

I’m now building my own little wooden house, down here in the tropics, and hope my grumpy female guardian-angel will stay with me until the end.

© 2007 by Franz L. Kessler