Please. Please. Give me the option.

This is something new for me. A degree of melancholia. Like I've never felt before. Maybe I am lapsing into a psychosomatic illness. A mental malaise. That's affecting me physically. Making me feel tired. And downbeat. A weird thing. Most days, I can get up the gumption. To walk. To stroll 10 miles. A leisurely pace. Maybe 18-to-20-minute miles. Even when I'm feeling queasy. I do this. To relieve my anxiety. That's what it is sometimes. An overwhelming anxiety. A discomfort. A melancholia.  I speculate. Maybe it's the result of turning 80. In September. A psychological thing. A reminder of my mortality. And that I don't have all that much time left. I have had other trauma in the past year. Eight days in an Italian hospital. For a heart problem. Angioplasty. A near-death experience. In a horrid traffic accident. In Yellowstone Park. Maybe it all adds up. To a cumulative psychosomatic effect. I don't know. I don't know. I'm trying to get to the bottom of it. Maybe I need a thorough physical. At the Mayo Clinic. For reassurance. That the origin of all this is more mental than physical. That there are effective ways of dealing with this stuff. I've always fancied myself as being in love with life. But this anxiety makes me wonder. If I'm capable of living life. Forever and ever. Maybe not. If I become ill. And in despair. I'm in love with life. Conditionally.  As long as I feel good. With it. Mentally. And physically. I wonder if one eventually tires of life. My father did. So did my mother. Maybe everyone does. In the end. In the physical sense.  In the declining stages of physical life. Please. Please. Give me the option. Of a pure, unimpeded spiritual existence. So that I can enjoy and savor life. Forever and ever. --Jim Broede