Life is weird.  For years I assumed I’d be working my ass off up until the day I dropped dead of exhaustion, or of any number of diseases to choose from.

Then life happened, and I resigned myself to caregiving until whoever dropped dead first, probably me, or option 2, spending my final years under a proverbial overpass.

Then yet another weird twist of fate intervened, and here I am, go figure, in the midwest (!?), a boring retired person staring at a screen, trying to figure out what “kicking ass” even means.

I know what the expression typically conjures up–scaling Mt. Kickass, being St. Kickass, achieving the Kickass Award of the year, etc.  But how do the majority of us poor average slobs attain Kickassdom?

Most average people are too busy working their ass off, or retiring from it if they can, to even think about kicking it, let alone affording it.  Some of us feel fortunate to have even survived all the crap thus far, and have no energy left for kicking anything.

So I have a hard time imagining myself doing it, or being it, or what “it” even looks like.  I’m just one of billions of ordinary folks who did nothing remarkable or exceptional until I died.  (Maybe I’m jumping ahead of myself a little there?)

I’m also one of those types who torture themselves and others with endless ruminations on the point of life, and how I don’t measure up blahblahblah.  It must be nice to be one of those mindless (practical?) souls who don’t waste precious time trying to work it all out.

Maybe “kicking ass” isn’t something lofty and unattainable, after all.  Maybe it’s in the “little” things that are actually badass feats under the circumstances.  As in, all the resourceful, inventive ways ordinary humans find to overcome impossible crap that life throws at them, and be resilient.  And even have a sense of humor about it, after all the shit is shoveled.

I’ll let you know if I figure it all out.  In the meantime, I’ll just keep posing as a writer of pithy anecdotes, and see if anything clever materializes.