Finding Neverland
By Michael Karlo Lim
Acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared by *break into song* “Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes…!” and again by a factor of a ballpark twenty-something and here I am pulling up at the gates of Jurassic Park.
I was looking at throwing yet another one of my crazy fastfood-chain kiddie birthday parties but I thought I’d just keep it quiet and introspective before I start using votive candles on my future birthday cakes. I feel that I have stretched out the #forever21 theme far too long.
Mounting responsibility, accountabilities and the need to restructure my personal branding also dictate a modicum of restraint. I know I’’ll still celebrate my birthday is some way true to my identity.
“Grow old but never grow up”, they say. I’d switch that around. I most definitely could use more self-control and maturity while retaining permissible childlike qualities — like eternal wonder and finding joy in the simple things — but more than that I’d also like to retain most of my collagen matrix. In the middle of a rather impassioned discussion about investments in equities, my prospective client — an aesthetic plastic surgeon, shot out a hand to my forehead and matter-of-factly declared that I’m showing marked creasing. My animated brows make up more than thirty percent of my total body language and contribute ninety to wrinkle advancement. Apparently, scrunching works only if you’re Adam Levine.
Needless to say, neither of us got to sell our services to the other.
Things get better over time. I am finally winning the war against acne with only a few guerilla stragglers foolishly staging flash uprisings against my benzoyl peroxide arsenal. I’ve lost my baby fat opportunely just around the same time I did my highly efficient ability to metabolize large amounts of carbohydrates. Then again, there is the trend of the Dad Bod. I already gave up on the sealed ends of my leg bones and can only hope to win the lottery to afford an Ilizarov. I now deal with the liability of a living inheritance from my father that is creeping on my hairline by banking on the inverse proportionality of testosterone levels to capital follicular profusion. Observe Jason Statham, Vin Diesel and The Rock. Effectively, the more hair I’d lose then the more head I get.
My earlier youth was on the short leash of moral obligation and the choke-collar of emotional blackmail. I was to spread my wings but weighed down by prerequisites. Cinderkarlo was always home by midnight. Was. The minutes I, too much later, clock towards sunrise make me the black sheep but I now have more than three bags full of wool. I learned more from my mistakes than from repressive guidance that I’m sure I’d want to make more.
My truckload of shoulda-coulda-woulda’s toppled over as I careened around that last bend. I’ve vainly attempted to salvage what I can only realizing now that I’m weighed down at an ever increasing incline. At this point, life may already be done with passing me by and is more interested in playing chicken, instead. Most of the time I take it up on a sweaty pop-and-lock showdown but sometimes I hold it close in a passionate tango. I’m swept up by the music and I can’t stop now.
I’ve found the fountain of youth and it’s attached to a draft system. My glass is, as it has always been, overflowing. I’m bringing bottoms up and slamming them back down for refills. No one’s getting out of this alive so I’m making damn sure I’m going down swinging.
