We all die alone. Unless you’re the pilot.

Working retail for a decade-plus did it all in for me. 100 cumulative weeks of Christmas carols, decorations, impatience, childish adults, stress, and readjusting merchandising just so we could be told that we missed targets, underperformed, and failed at loss prevention.

So, I quit. I also quit X-mas. I celebrated on beaches for a few years. That was great. In deserts for a few as well. But, alas, I have returned to the rugged white north and the big-box spectacle. I have children who get a “normal” Christmas. The elf is on a shelf.

As for dying alone, I choose life. It’s the part we experience. I have a partner and a family, true. More on this later. But, I don’t plan on being parked in a nursing home as a drooling, vegetative, sieve-brained, line-item expense; or some mega-corp, health-sector, big-pharm farm animal. Milowda na animal.

When I can no-longer read and write and wipe my own bum — or when the pain, despair, and attendant paperwork for living threatens to overwhelm my desire to continue — I’ll want no part of this life anymore.

I’m an introvert. My kids mourn my partner going to a yoga class more than they’ll ever mourn my passing. My wife would be pissed it wasn’t put in the shared calendar. I’ve not got roots anywhere anymore, so my funeral will be sparsely attended. My close friends, I see once a year. My sibs would attend. But, that’s essentially it. None of my colleagues from previous schools. None of my students. None of the people I met in travels. None of my old schoolmates. All those ties are gone.

What’s left? Not much. So be it. Today, I’m alive. Today, I can learn, create, and leave messages in bottles. Today, I can respond to you and say the time, place and circumstance of your death tells nothing about you. The times, places, and decisions of your life — from a single room to the infinite vacuum — only partially tell your story. You, being here, tell the rest.