Earlier this week I bought a pewter whiskey flask. I didn’t really need one (who really does?), but I’ve long wanted one, so when I saw one I liked at my favorite tobacconist I laid down my coin and left with it.

Today I took it to the mall to have it engraved with my initials so that when I go out with it I can announce to the world that it is indeed mine. Not that anyone really knows who I am. I left it for an hour at Things Remembered, got a coffee at the Starbucks kiosk and did a little window shopping, eventually parking my backside on a sofa in the mall to rest my dogs and people watch.

I’ve always been naturally inquisitive; shortly before my father passed away he told me that as a tot I could’ve been the poster child for a “But Why?” campaign. As a writer, I’ve parlayed that inquisitiveness with a talent for observation.

It wasn’t long before an interesting couple strolled past me. The woman may have been in her late 20s, her mate (with a thinning pate) in his early 30s. The woman pushed a stroller with an infant and had two toddlers to her right, while her husband held the hand of a fourth toddler. What first struck me was that he trailed his stroller pushing wife by three steps. Then I was struck by how tired this couple looked, although the woman bore a mien of contentment. By contrast, her husband looked, at best, overwhelmed, at worst, trapped by the responsibility of this brood, all under the age of six.

I wondered, amused for a moment, that the woman might’ve been fertile to a flaw—that she might become pregnant at the very thought of communing with her husband in love’s ultimate act. Then I wondered if either or both of them had gotten what they’d bargained for when they’d exchanged “I dos” at the altar. All of which left me to consider whether I’d gotten everything for which I’d ever bargained in my life.

At 53, I have much for which to be thankful: good health, a job in a struggling economy, heat, hot water, food on my table, a roof over my head, and enough money to occasionally buy something frivolous. One of my novels was also recently published and I’m expecting to receive my first royalty shortly. I’m happily immersed in another novel (my fifth), and I never seem at a loss for something about which to write, whether a novel, short fiction, an op-ed piece, sports or a memoir.

On the downside, I’m divorced, have no children, have had my heart broken more than once, and have inflicted upon a woman the same. Two lessons I’ve learned the result of these past relationships: one, that whatever lessons I learned from my own broken heart don’t apply to the next relationship; and two, that it feels no better being the dumper than it does being the dumpee. In other words, it feels no better to wrong another than it does being wronged.

So now I sit here, alone on a Saturday night smoking a good cigar and sipping Japanese whiskey—I’ll try anything once and this is one whiskey I’ll try only once—typing these words. As a writer, I’m constantly, as Robert Lamm wrote in 25 or 6 to 4, searching for something to say. Lamm’s lyrics are often misunderstood as being about drug use when in fact they are about a songwriter’s frustrations. They are lyrics to which I certainly can relate. But I’m also searching for other things: love and acceptance, the meaning of life, peace of mind, and spiritual awareness. I’m wise enough to understand that finding love risks another broken heart; while learning the meaning of life and achieving peace of mind and discovering spiritual awareness may come at the cost of my hunger for arranging words on a white screen.

I left the mall with my newly engraved whiskey flask wondering if I’d gotten what I’d bargained for in my life. I know one woman who would say I’ve gotten what I deserve. Certainly I’ve earned what I have—both the good as well as the not so good. But do any of us ever get that for which we bargain or deserve? The truth is good things happen to bad people just as bad things happen to good people. Why should I be any different?

Life is a journey, not a destination; although at my life’s end I hope for a gentle goodbye and that my regrets won’t outweigh the good I’ve left behind.

—JCG/February 20, 2010