I wrote this in 2019

This, written on my walk blog in 2019, feels kind of prophetic:

What made this year's walk more difficult than the one done two years ago? I'd say that age was one factor; I did just turn fifty, after all, a realization that tends to send one over a psychological cliff. If the body follows the mind, then that at least partly explains why I had a harder time on the trail this year. Glib reassurances notwithstanding, age isn't just a number: it's a real indication of how much time you've spent on this earth, and an actuarial indicator of how much time, give or take, you have left on this earth. I half-joke with people that I'm going to be dead by sixty; the Korean side of my family has never been very long-lived. Mom didn't make it to 67; her mother died in her fifties, and her father died in his forties. I never had the chance to meet either of my Korean grandparents: they were both dead before I was born. On my father's side, my grandparents were alcoholics. Dad refused to touch alcohol as a result, and he's currently 77, the same age as Harrison Ford (they're both 1942 babies). Still, Dad's side of the family, like Mom's, has a history of cardiac problems, and Dad had a heart attack in 2006, so I've inherited some bad juju from both sides of my family, which makes me think that, either I won't make it to 60, or I won't make it much past my 60s. The diabetes and obesity don't help matters, either; I'm a prime candidate for all sorts of maladies ranging from stroke to fatty-liver disease to God-knows-what-else. I've had moments where my Korean doc would look at my numbers, then give me a look that said Why haven't you exploded already? The fact that I'm alive now is miraculous. I'm on borrowed time. Every breath is a reason to be thankful that my number hasn't been called.