I've lived.

I lived through the St. Louis tornado of 1958. No fatalities, but it put a whole in the roof of the Arena. I lived through the launch of the Russian Sputnik and the Cuban Missile Crisis. I watched my WWII veteran father react with wonder and fear as these unfolded. I observed Jim Crow.

I lived through my family moving from the City to the suburbs as part of white flight. Didn’t understand what was going on, but missed my neighborhood school, my parks, and ability to walk everywhere.

I lived through the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We watched it on TV over and over again. No one knew what was next.

I lived through those tumultuous teenage years playing in a rock ‘n roll band, navigating high school, and discovering that girls were not so bad after all. I discovered sex and survived it with a smile on my face.

Then I lived through the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., two of my real heroes and to this day cannot understand how we didn't do more to prevent this type of horrendous act that chopped away at the foundation of our democracy.

I lived through Vietnam – both in Southeast Asia and observer of the 1968 Democratic Convention, Kent State massacre, and all the antiwar and civil rights protests that just fell short of changing us for the better.

I lived through the Nixon years and Watergate. I watched and listened — as a newly-enlisted airman — that if elected he would end the war. I watched again four years later, after returning from Southeast Asia, as he repeated that broken promise once again. He was lying.

I lived through Nixon resigning in disgrace.

I lived through the years of raising two daughters. I remember their ascension over obstacles and rights of passage as they grew into young ladies. I remember carpooling them to school each morning. I remember them going off to college.

I lived through a dysfunctional marriage with an off-kilter woman in a loveless marriage. I lived through suburbia and yearned to escape.

Along the way, I lived through Bill Clinton and his impeachment. I lived through gas shortages and bellbottoms, rising and falling home interest rates. I lived through manipulation of the economy, and the middle class. I lived through it all.

I lived during love and after it went away. I learned to cherish what I had and not what I have.

I lived through the demolition of the Arena in 1999, once a venue for sports and entertainment, a bowling alley and a roller rink. Once neighbor to the Forest Park Highlands amusement park. Today that land is a sprawling hodge-podge of medical office buildings, luxury apartments, and a smattering of retail.

I lived through changing my life and finding a peaceful happiness, discovering that being alone does not mean being lonely, realizing solitude for the gift that it is. I lived through several affairs and relationships that were wonderful, and fuel to continue the journey of discovery.

I lived through recessions, changing markets, new trends, bad bosses, new jobs, a false sense of what success is, and friends moving away – far away.

I lived through both elections of Barack Obama as President of the United States and learned that hope is possible, as well as decency. I lived through the realization that we could have and should have done more.

I lived through discovering I am a diabetic and have heart disease. I lived through acceptance, defiance, and learning to love life in the presence of mortality and to take better care of myself.

I am living through retirement. I lived through that feeling of not being needed any longer to the truth that I had something more important to give now.

I have lived through the arrival and departure of dogs, cats and other pets. Sometimes I think of them and wonder if they were my true family. They taught me more than any human.

I am living through new friends, new choices, and how to love my fellow man, and how freeing that can be. I am living through reconciliation. I am discovering what really matters in life.

I am living through the garbage that is Trump. I know it will end for the better. It is only hate and greed dressed up as a person.

I have lived all my life with ignorance – some of it within me and all around me. I am learning to be tolerant and work to teach by example without preaching.

I’ve learned the value of a dollar and I’ve learned that giving a dollar is worth more than earning one.

I have survived brushes with religion – some intentional, some not. I have learned how to avoid dogma and find truth. I have avoided the lazy catch of believing for the sake of having something to believe in. An excuse for good or bad behavior. To trust my intuition that love conquers hate, and welcoming and understanding is easier and better than fear.

I’ve lived my entire life as a nobody. And now know I am somebody. And all the nobodies I’ve known are somebodies too. And all those who claim and act to be somebodies are actually nobodies by the fact that they have put themselves above others.

I have learned from great men and women; and I have been distracted by petty men and women. I have learned from those distractions.

I have lived all my life with hope. And hope I can take that with me when I leave.