For the love of people
Living in the 3rd quarter means just that. You may start thinking about the what-if there is a 4th quarter and what-if there isn’t?
Do I really only have about 47 thanksgivings left with my family?
Ty and I rolled up to Johnny’s Burgers hungry for just about anything. It was an old fashioned drive up type cafe where you ordered outside and they brought you a fun tray that sat on your window. Everything about this was exciting to me. I love sitting in my car like i’m 5 waiting for a tray to come to my window!
After we ordered, I noticed a young man sitting in the car next to us, in the driver's seat, his hood up (on his hoodie), and rubbing his eyes like he just woke up. It was past noon.
I didn’t stare but bemused myself that he was reminiscent of my own ‘children’ of 20-something. Time goes by and we get our food delivered on stated plastic tray and I glance over again and the young man looks as if he’s going to pull his hair out...and just behind him I see two fragile old hands talking. Ahh. I mention to Ty - it appears the chap is befuddled with dad or grandpa excitedly chatting away and the young man looks like he needs another nap.
And then I really started thinking. I don’t really think of life as a finite resource. A resource that needs management. Life is finite and we keep using it up every second. We can see the years go by and see what’s been used up but do we really have any vague sense of what’s left? Does that young man know that his elder companion may really only have a few more conversations at this drive-in restaurant?
Smart watches monitor our daily accomplishments. I love it when my watch exclaims that I completed my daily steps. But maybe it should be monitoring what remains left of my life? We are so busy with tomorrows that we forget the todays we have left. It’s kinda morbid, but we live in denial.
So I counted my days. My days left. Well, kind of. Ty says we will live well into our 100s. Seems aggressive and optimistic. Let’s just be slightly less aggressive and optimistic - still aggressive and optimistic - just less.
I will live to be 100. I will be an active participant until 88. Ummm. What does this all mean? Let's just see the hard calculations shall we? Pull up your big girl panties.
I will probably buy one more large investment in my lifetime.
Maybe 2 more cars. If I travel (uhhhhh, thank you Rona), every other year AFTER 2021, I can maybe get in 30 new countries? Upward range of 2000 more hikes. I have roughly 8000 (give or take 4k) bottles of wine left to drink and 17K plus dinners to enjoy with Ty, friends and family. Maybe 30 more Maggie, Too adventures. Uh, that one hurt. Many many calculations can be made here. The one number I will not think about is the number of times I have left to see momma. These numbers do not make me happy; they are just a harsh reality.
As I look back I had lots of years where I was going, going, going. Calculations of these sorts would have been ridiculous. Peter Calvet asked his grandson, at the ripe age of 7, to describe his mom in one word. He said, “busy”.
There was always something to do, somewhere to go or something to get. I woke myself up at 5am so I could read my bible, get myself ready for work, make breakfast and school lunches for kids (added love notes that eventually got rejected), sometimes do a crockpot gig for dinner that night and then head off to work.
When my kids were little I would drive them or sometimes walk them to school. Many, many times they walked each other to school. Why? Busy mom. Too many times my heart would break into a million pieces as I sent them off by themselves. I wanted to be that stay at home mom, class assistant, bake cookies when they arrived home mom. Alas, it was not in the cards.
By the time I made it to work, did an 8 hour job I felt like I had already climbed my mountain for the day. But Mt Lassen wasn’t done. After I got home I helped with school work, dinner, and then bedtime shenanigans. Hopefully some play. How I loved to play with the boys. Somehow by the grace of God I was able to tuck them into bed and read books with them most every night. I loved that warm and snuggle time together… I then had an hour or so before I crashed to wake up and do it all over again the next day.
Five times a week for many, many years. But those are the hours I wouldn’t recalculate. Those are non-negotiable time of well spent hours. I am now a grandma. My time is ticking.
This isn’t to be a downer as it is to really count those moments that exist now. This rabbit hole is a cautionary tale of how I’ve sleepwalked through many amazing moments, and the determination that I will try to never do that again.
My 3rd quarter is starting out to be the best years of my life. I don’t want to waste any of these moments. My sweet man. My young boys who are now thriving young men that I can have legit meaningful conversations with. My grandson...hopefully someday grandchildren. Yet the time still ticks away and I have to manage what I have left responsibly.
If I selfishly just do more of what I want to do I still have the problem of giving something else up. Again, there is only so much time each of us has. But getting rid of things also means spending MY time and deciding what to not focus on! OMG, just no. I limit my social media to 15 minutes a day: that’s 256,620 minutes left, or 4,277 hours, or 178 days of social media. Maybe I need to shelf that to 5 minutes a day. Good gravy. I would give 178 days to my love. I’d give 178 days to my boys or my grandchildren. Hell, I’d give 178 days to someone I didn’t know that needed help. But 178 days to social media? Piss off. That’s not even an experience!
What I KNOW I can do is change how I view each and every experience. Maybe I have 100 Michelin-star restaurants left..or maybe just 1. Hopefully I have 40+ adventures with my love, boys and grandchildren. Quality of an experience is a personal pursuit and I know there are only so many marbles in the jar.