Buying Time

I recently reconnected with an old girlfriend, someone I had met in seventh grade at the school bus stop. As usual with friends much changes as you grow older and through no fault of our own we drifted apart. Last summer, a mutual friend passed away and through his death we reconnected. I guess for both of us the message was that time passes way too quickly and is available only in finite quantities. He had just turned 50, we are both 51 so it really hit home. He was someone I had known since I was 14 years old so we went back a long way.

My girlfriend mentioned retiring at the end of 2010. She is a teacher and like many teachers, she loves what she does but wants to retire while she still can enjoy her life. I wholeheartedly agreed with her. You work your whole life and then you grow older and more tired and suddenly, you look around and ask yourself - where did the time go? Suddenly, your life is not about making money and buying "stuff". Its about time; and friends, money cannot buy anyone of us any more of it. We are here for a finite period of time. We cannot buy another ten minutes or ten years. The clock ticks and it slips away.

As I grow older, immortality seems so very appealing to me. So exotic and unattainable is this concept of cheating time at it's own game. Yes, after we die we live on through others, but not in this body. It turns to dust and we return home. I would not mind immortality at this age. Think of all the experience and knowledge you have gained! Forget turning into a vampire at twenty-five, though I guess I would much rather look twenty five than fifty but hey, you can't have everything!

Stuff is great but as Billy S. says "Time is of the essence." He knows whereof he speaks because one day we are twenty-one and we blink and we are fifty-one. Believe me, it creeps up way too quickly. I have read that "overnight" success takes about twenty years. I figure that if I become an overnight success, that makes me about seventy-one.

Much to think about, this immortality. What's a little blood drinking in exchange for living forever with super human strength and heightened senses. Plus I'd be able to read the fine print on labels. Not too much to ask for now, is it?

Immortality

"The first condition of immortality is death."

Stanislaw J. Lee

I love this quote. A heady reminder that to achieve eternity one must lose their most precious possession; their life. Is it a fair trade? Is it one I would make? All novelists writing about vampires much address the issue of immortality with their vampires: is it a gift or a curse? In the last episode of TruBlood, Bill Compton and Sookie Stackhouse are walking past the cemetery where his wife and children are buried. How strange and disconnecting that must be?

I once asked my husband Marvin what if you could live forever? We were walking through the historic district of my hometown one summer night and the topic naturally turned to vampires. His response was so touching. He said that he would have a hard time watching his two children grow older than him and then die. Not being a parent I had never thought about it. In the natural order of things, most children do outlive their parents. To watch them age, suffer and then die much be surreal indeed and lend such a sense of disconnect to your life.

For a vampire, it must be so strange and sad to watch your mortal family do the same. In Immortal Obsession, one of the vampires is faced with his offspring begging him for eternal life when she is faced with her own death. When she is turned by another vampire, she forever carries a grudge against her father for refusing to give her such a great gift. This impacts his life in present day New York. The consequences of our actions and our decisions.

What would you do if given the chance at immortality? Be honest.