At night I am reading “Still Alice.” What an incredibly moving journey it is.
The movie was great. But the book is even better. Because the author puts us inside of Alice’s head, and here we are as a respected Harvard professor who love our work, and then we begin the very gradual then the very sudden process of going through the stages of (Early Onset) Alzheimers from the initial wondering if something is wrong, to learning something is wrong, to dreading telling our family, then feeling like we’ve disappointed our family, and then in just a very short year starting to get confused and losing our memories and not being able to work anymore.
When I was 22 I had a professor who I thought was bat shit crazy. I went to class every day, did all the assignments with reasonable feedback, and then was called into his office a few weeks before the end of class where he seemed irritated with me and said, “I don’t see how you’re going to pass this class.” There were many times in college where I deserved a D or an F and was able to connive my way into a B or a C, but this was a time I deserved an A or a B and got a C. I was pissed and went to the Dean, who backed the professor and not me, and for many years I’ve thought back on how bat shit crazy that professor was. But last night it struck me that maybe he had Alzheimers. Or dementia. Or even just mental illness. And suddenly I felt very sorry that I was not kinder to him. Or was not more attentive to those beautiful people I’ve known (I’m thinking of one in particular) who died of Alzheimers.
What I’m learning from this book and from typing this is that when all else fails, show compassion and kindness. Because it’s possible that their brain is going through trauma we just can’t see.
Here are to the people we’ve loved. And to the people who have lost the second most important thing we all have after life — our memories. And here is to the book Still Alice, which robbed me of some sleep last night but also is opening my eyes a little bit more which is a beautiful thing.
Today I was driving home from errands and it was sunny, a rarity on a February Sunday in Seattle. Being that it was sunny my head felt clear, and being that I was stuck in traffic my mind was wandering, and my thoughts eventually drifted back to 35 years ago.
Back then, in the late 80s and early 90s when I was in college, every boy I knew played and watched basketball. Football was fine, and some kids watched baseball, and a few were into hockey, but the majority of us were mostly into basketball. We all played basketball, and most kids were at least decent at it, and we had a lot of really fun games playing on the playground, and then in the evenings sometimes we’d gather to watch the college and pro games.
I was thinking about this, and then thinking about Christian Laettner, who is about my age and was a marvelous basketball player at Duke, and I was thinking how talented he was and tall he was and self-assured he was. And I realized that that self-assured kid who had everything (talent, height, fame, athletic ability, future wealth) including his ENTIRE ADULT LIFE still ahead of him is now (WTF!!!) 56 years old.
56 is not young. In fact, it’s closer to 80 then it is to 30, and closer to 90 then it is to 20. And what’s more 56 arrived very very rapidly.
How did all of this happen?
How did someone my age become 56? How did I become that age? How did Michael Jordan become old (60s) and Jerry Rice become old (60s) and Joe Montana very old (70s) when just last year they were young with their entire adult lives ahead of them.
I just don’t know how it is that 35 years went by so quickly, and also where they went. And also it’s amazing how often and how hard this realization strikes me. I can never quite get over how quickly this life thing whisks by for all of us, including me.
Anyway. Life is so very short. And our youthful primes are even shorter. And 35 years goes by — poof — in a blink of an eye. Here’s hoping the next 35 years go a lot slower 🙂 And I’m grateful that at least I have my memories and can remember very well back when I was in college.
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
How The Passage Of Time Has Influenced My Perspective
I was 43 the first time I started to relax.
For 20 years of my adulthood I’d fretted and toiled. Fretted and toiled, mostly about each of life’s milestones.
First, it was to graduate college. I was going to university in a small town that I didn’t like very much, because being in my early 20s I didn’t want to be in a small town — I wanted to be in the city! So I wanted out of that college, and the best way to do that was to graduate, so I fretted and toiled my way toward graduation.
Then I graduated and it was time to get my career going. Except we were in a mini-recession (early 90s) at the time and no one was hiring recent college graduates. So I worked a series of grunt jobs as a mover and a DJ and bank teller and tutor, and meanwhile went back to school to earn my teaching certification. I’d love to say those were good times, but they weren’t: it was a time of very low checking account balances and day-to-day drudgery and all through those years I fretted and I toiled.
Then I got out of school and got my first career job and then wanted so desperately to have a house. I felt like houses were out of my reach, and felt a lot of resentment at older generations for creating a world where I couldn’t afford a house. I spent a lot of time fretting and toiling although after a few years I was actually able to buy a house (!).
And so it went.
Every single step of the way, year after year of my 20s and then my 30s, I fretted and toiled. Fretted and toiled. I was pretty miserable most of the time, if I’m honest. Yes, I had my moments of joy, and on the surface everyone always commented how happy I seemed, but there was just this overwhelming sense of toiling and fretting surging through my veins like an invisible poison. I worked and worked, and when I wasn’t working I was taking care of the kids and the house and covering for an always-absent (now ex) wife, and all the time I worried and fretted about this and that, always worrying about the next milestone.
Then there was hope!
There was a moment — actually two — when I was 43 when I finally relaxed.
The first moment was on an early morning bike ride. We were at our vacation home, which I loved BUT which I was forever worried about paying for, and we were at the house one summer week when I was on a dawn mountain bike ride through the forest. There was a moment along the river when suddenly I realized the early morning sun was on my face, and the birds were singing all around me, and the river was murmuring next to me, and meanwhile the sweet smell of nature was in the air. And suddenly I just stopped. I stopped, got off my bike, and just soaked in that moment for a minute, then two minutes, then 15 minutes. There literally was not another human being around me, and I suddenly wondered if I were in heaven because it was just soooooo peaceful. Up until that time, I’d never experienced a moment like that before.
The next moment when I relaxed was THE moment when I relaxed. Age 43, and having dinner with my parents, and was making great money, and my work seemed to love me, and the kids were teens and seemed happy, and my (now ex) wife was around helping a little more often, and I was even still in my athletic prime (I’d batted .920 in and still regularly making diving catches during the recently-ended softball season), and suddenly I thought, “I’ve made it. I’m going to be okay.” I actually thought life might freeze at that very moment, where I’d be okay and age 43 forever.
But time didn’t stop. And (thankfully) life didn’t stop.
It kept on coming. Moment after moment, day after day, year after year.
That was way over 10 years ago.
In the decade since that moment at dinner with my parents, so many changes have happened in my life. I was let go for the very first time, and then for the second time. I battled a fluke lung disease (successfully, thank goodness). I got divorced and then after promising myself I’d never date again actually dated again and got remarried again (to a much more present person than my ex was). And meanwhile the years just keep on coming. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
To me, the most shocking things aren’t the life changes I’ve undergone since I was 43 (actually, each one of them has been a blessing). It’s that each year just keeps on passing. That life just keeps on passing. One year after the other. And it makes me realize the folly of toiling and fretting about milestones, about wanting to achieve certain things on a certain timeframe in life at the expense of being in the moment. Because life is in that moment. My amazing ex-grandmother-in-law used to say, “Life is what happens while you’re making your future plans.” How true that is.
I wish I could go back in time. And to tell myself to stop fretting. And to stop toiling. Because that stole so much happiness from me, and sucked 20 years of my life away.
But.
But!
I’m here now. And presumably I still have a few decades of good life left in me. And I’ve been influenced by the passage of time in that I’ve learned to just be in the moment, to just feel joy in the here and now, and to take a moment to appreciate each and every day.
Regret is folly. Better is to take what we’ve learned and to apply that to our present and future. Because our present and future is all we have in our life. And I’m just so grateful that time has taught me to appreciate today.
Wishing you a great day.
NOTES:
Every day WordPress offers a writing prompt. I’ve never been a writing prompt person but actually have been enjoying these prompts. This is my response to today’s prompt.
Life, Work & Wonder 