It started innocently enough, just me, getting my nails done. A little moment of self-care in a week that hasn’t killed me yet. My nail tech asked why I keep my nails so short, and without thinking, I told her the truth: arthritis – the real kind. Not the “my joints hurt when it rains” kind. It’s more like the “my fingers are slowly turning into pretzels” kind. It’s the kind of arthritis that working a zipper turns into an Olympic sharp-shooting event and opening a jar into a full-body workout. The nail tech giggled. Maybe she didn’t understand, because she’s too young to know that laughter sometimes fills the silence when reality feels a little too real. Or perhaps because she was Vietnamese and did not speak English, and did a lot of nodding and smiling at almost everything I said

So I did what I do: I made a joke.

I told her that turning 50 is like when your car’s warranty runs out, suddenly everything starts breaking – your joints, your eyesight, your patience. Your bladder shrinks, but your gut expands. You can’t hear, you can’t sleep, but you can’t stay awake, and Oil of Olay becomes your new BFF – all of it. You’re just out there, driving on bald tires, hoping the brakes hold out until the next stoplight.

Last night, I spiraled into one of those oddly specific internet black holes about clever headstones. A slideshow, no less. Because nothing says dignified farewell like a slideshow that treats someone’s final words like punchlines for extremely bored insomniacs.

One read, “Well, this sucks.” Doesn’t it? Of course it does. We all know where this road leads. But another one lingered with me longer than it should have. It said, “I know something you don’t.” That one didn’t make me laugh. It made me pause because I thought, “They really do. They know and they can’t tell anyone.” Not that I am in a hurry to find out.

We spend our lives collecting things, stories, stretch marks, habits, regrets, and then we boil all of that down to a few words on stone. Its only purpose is to make the living feel better. Something to make our exit feel poetic, even if our knees, hips, back … you get the point – gave out long before our hope did.

But me? I don’t want a headstone.

I’ve told my family, probably too many times, that I want to be buried as a tree. Not metaphorically. Literally. In one of those tree pod burials, or a Capsula Mundi, where your body becomes nourishment for a sapling. I want to be a giving tree, roots tangled in the earth, branches reaching for the sun, and leaves that dance when the wind whispers stories. I want my future generations to picnic beneath me. I want someone to read a book, or cry, or laugh under my branches and somehow still feel like I’m there.

My kids think I’m nuts. As usual. But what do they know? They’re still under warranty.

Maybe the real point of a headstone isn’t to summarize a life, but to leave a whisper for those still walking around with warranties intact: You’re going to break down too, so enjoy the drive. Stop to watch a sunset or to run through a field of wildflowers. Don’t pick up roadkill but say a prayer for their soul. There is still so much beauty in the drive.

So, yes. My fingers are failing me, and most of the time, I sprint to the restroom like Usain Bolt. Sometimes I make it, but just barely. For today, though, I still got my nails done. I still joked with a stranger. I still came home, took a deep breath, and wrote this down. Because maybe this is my version of a headstone, words carved not in granite, but in memory.

And if you’re reading this?

I may be falling apart, but I’ve got big plans for the afterlife.

One day, I’ll trade in these creaky joints for roots and branches. And if I’m lucky, you’ll visit me when the light is just right. You can lean against my trunk and enjoy the quiet, knowing I’ll always be here, quietly judging. Lovingly, silently, and just enough to make you feel slightly guilty for no apparent reason, because that’s what moms do.