I can feel the time quickly passing by as I’ve now lived in 7 different decades, 2 millenniums, and 2 centuries. I’m 67 years old which breaks down to 3,515 weeks, 24,607 days, 808 months, 590,000 plus hours, 35.4 million minutes, and over 2.1 billion seconds…oops there goes another one. Even when time seems to move slowly, it soon catches up and passes us by in a flash.

In this sense, I’m simply a time traveler, briefly visiting this world as a guest, hoping to leave it in better shape than I arrived. However, I’m not sure that I’ve yet done that! The only impressions that I will leave are invisible footprints of waste that I move to the trash bins each week and flush down the toilet. My most valuable contribution is my son, who will be the last to carry on my name. Most importantly, his three children, my grandchildren, will continue to pass along my genes. Only time will tell what these genes might accomplish.

I suppose I could take on a voluntary role that might offset the ecological impact of my existence. I’m certainly much more aware of what I throw away and more conscientious of what I pick-up. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, I’m supposedly responsible for 360 pounds of poop per year on average and over 1606 pounds of trash, recycling, and compost. In total, about a ton per year generating 134,000 total pounds or 6,100 bags during my 67 years as a guest in this world. Some of that breaks down naturally, but even a paper towel takes 2 weeks to a month to fully decompose.

Yes, I’ve helped pick-up roadside trash, but that doesn’t even make a dent in the 6,100 bags I’ve filled in this lifetime. At a bag a day, it would take 16 years and 6 months to offset my total output, and in that time I personally would add another 1500 bags to our landfills and sewage plants. These are facts that I need to be more sensitive of during the remainder of my stay. I want my life to be more than just a pile of garbage bags.

I will, in fact, not leave any kind of monument behind. There will be no gravestone to mark my passing, and my body will go to science. Only my genes will stay behind and perhaps live forever. They will be passed on from generation to generation, just as they were loaned to me. Time will keep on ticking and maybe these genetic seeds will give back more to this earth than I have taken away.