In 2012 my doctor suggested I give up a lot of foods I love. Just for six months or so, so not for terribly long. But still. It was a lot to ask all things considered.
For more than a year I’d been mired in hell battling lung disease. I’d spent the better part of a month going through a myriad of doctor’s appointments and tests before spending a week in the hospital as they tried to diagnose what I had (spoiler alert: a very very rare disease with only a handful of known cases at the time). Then I’d spent six months on prednisone and other medicines to battle the disease. Then the real hell began: utter exhaustion as the disease and the doctor’s faded away and left me to pick up the pieces of what had been a normal life just 12 months earlier.
Turns out all the prednisone I’d been on had created sensitivities to a lot of foods, many of which I love: breads (yeast), chocolate, most fruits and (aarrrgggghhhh) coffee among them. I was placed on a strict limited diet to decrease inflammation and to give my body a chance to re-set. This meant that I had to give up nearly everything I love to eat, including pizza, chocolate and coffee.
What I learned from this experience is that you can take nearly everything from me, and what I most hated sacrificing was my coffee.
I love coffee.
I love waking up in the morning to a cup of coffee. Sipping coffee throughout the day. And a midafternoon espresso to give me a final boost.
I love the smell. I love the feeling. And I love the experience of coffee.
To take that away from me was very very hard. And I was so grateful when I was told it was okay to drink it again six months later.
We learn how important things are when they are taken away. Lung disease cost me my ability to play competitive sports, the political ability (and desire) to thrive in Corporate America, and even my first marriage. But it was coffee that I missed most of all when I couldn’t have it.
Here’s to life. And here is to life with a fresh cup of coffee.
If there were a biography about you, what would the title be?
As a teen, I was teased a lot about my looks.
But my favorite tale is the time in eighth grade when my classmate burst into class. “Hey everyone, get this!” He called out to the class. “Tony’s grandma was looking at our yearbook last night and stopped and pointed at a picture and said, ‘Now that boy’s ugly.’ So Tony looks who to see it was and it was Rob!” Of course, I’m Rob in that story, and I can still hear the laughter from my classmates.
To make a long story short, that was a painful comment but I kept my head up. And I have many many faults, but I’m a reasonably confident person who didn’t let that teasing about my looks in my formative years bring me down and in fact had a lot of fun in my teen years. I’m actually kind of proud of that if I’m honest, that I hung in there and resisted the urge to withdraw from the world despite some heartless ribbing along the way.
I’ve had a lot of luck in my life. But I’ve also had my share of times where I was kicked in the groin. I had undiagnosed autoimmune disease as a kid but somehow emerged from that reasonably productive as an adult. My first marriage was to a selfish narcissist who eventually kicked me to the curb after extracting every morsel that she possibly could from me but again I emerged from that too (and today am re-married to a much better person). And perhaps luckiest of all, I was diagnosed with a potentially terminal (50/50) lung disease at age 42 but not only survived that but emerged from it mostly okay.
So I feel like I’ve lived a lucky life where I have so much to be grateful for, but also one where I’m frequently called “Ugly Boy” (mostly figuratively but one time literally) that I have had to stave off and then emerge from. And I have done just that.
I feel so fortunate for all that. So grateful for that. I am proud to say that I was called “Ugly Boy.” And that I emerged from that a-oh-kay 🙂
By the time they were 20, my parents were married (to each other 🙂 ). They started careers at 21, having kids (me) at 21 and they owned a house by 22. Later, they upgraded their house by age 27, started earning decent money at 30, and making great money at age 40.
Me?
I was married (for the first time) at 25. Started my career job at age 29. Had kids and a house at 30. And started earning decent money at age 35.
Always I was about five or ten years behind them. And that was okay.
By some miracle I caught up to them by age 40.
At age 40 I had some lucky breaks in my career, and I too suddenly started making pretty great money, just like my parents themselves had done at 40. Mom was proud of me, telling me that I was farther ahead of them by age 40, but the reality is we were about even.
Then life took me on a different path for me.
I got lung disease at 43. What started out as some fatigue and breathless when I exercised at age 40 was diagnosed as potentially-fatal lung disease when I was 43. That irrevocably changed the course of my life.
Whereas my parents spent their 40s having fun and accumulating money for retirement, I spent my 40s managing my health and holding on for dear life to my life and my career.
I spent countless hours in the doctor’s office. I lost a job, then found and lost another job. Meanwhile, after 5 years of trying to push and horse whip me back into my past successes despite my lung disease, my (now ex) wife lung gave up on me and moved on, first emotionally and then completely.
By 50 my parents were living their greatest life and could retire at any time.
By 50 I was job hopping, making half what I’d been at age 40, job hopping, managing my health as a second job, and hoping I could scrape enough together to retire by age 70.
In short, by age 50 my parents had been a LOT better off than I was.
And that’s okay.
I’m not my parents. My life is not my parents’ life. I was blessed because life could have just used my lung disease to kill me, but instead it spared me and I learned that I am a survivor, a battler, and surprisingly resilient.
And, overall, happy. Happier than I was at age 40, for sure.
I’m remarried. I won’t retire rich but by age 70 I’ll be okay.
In short, I was behind my parents, then caught up to my parents, then life pushed them ahead while knocking me back. And all in all I’m grateful. Because at the end of the day, all that matters to me is carving out some joy, managing my stress, and being alive.
It was pride that prevented me from being too open and out there in public. For example, I dreaded sales calling because of pride. And didn’t have social media accounts because of pride. And never ever allowed dirty dishes to be in the kitchen because of pride.
Pride brought my spirit down when there was a flaw with my house or car. It made me sensitive (and lash out) at criticism (“f— you!”). It made me fret too much about silly statistics, like batting average or shooting percentage or quota attainment percentage. Who cares what I batted in recreational softball??
It was pride that embarrassed me when my (now ex) wife promoted her business and herself, like that time she stood on the street corner and handed out Halloween candy with her business card on it. I remember having to quietly work so hard to swallow that pride, to let her do what she needed to do without commenting that it was embarrassing seeing my last name being handed out on a street corner.
And it was pride that drove me to always look my best, to make sure my hair was good and my body was firm and I stayed youthful looking.
In short, pride made me worry too much about how people perceived me.
Then lung disease grabbed me in 2011. Put me in a hospital bed. Made me tired. Nearly killed me. Then, by some incredible undeserving miracle, it loosened its grasp on me and retreated, sparing me and letting me not only live but live without an oxygen tank (a 50/50 chance)!
Maybe best of all, when lung disease retreated, it also took with it my pride. Which I think is a good thing. In fact, it’s a great thing.
I could care less how people (except Larissa) perceive my career. Or whether they remember me as a good athlete or smart or not. Or see me as attractive or not. Who cares?? What does it change or matter??
In 2019, when my hurtful ex-wife chose trying to shame me about various things rather than just honestly saying she wanted to move on with her life (i.e. chose gaslighting and shaming rather than transparency), I guffawed at her. “I won’t be judged by you,” I said. “I beat lung disease. What the f— have you done?”
That was the moment I realized that I was truly confident. That lung disease spared me from the judgement of others. Because when we’ve faced the specter of death, not much in life can scare us after that.
Now I don’t care how people perceive my career. Or think I’m goofy. Or roll their eyes at my goofy rambling face-book posts.
It’s incredibly liberating.
Today I made myself vulnerable. Posted on Facebook and Instagram and my LinkedIn page that I was holding an open house tomorrow. 15 years ago there is no way I would have done that, but today I only felt happy that I could do my best to promote Larissa’s client. It felt good.
Meanwhile, I could care less if ultimately people on LinkedIn think I’ve had a successful career or not. I know the truth. What do I care how some random person perceives me based on my profile? This also feels good.
Pride is folly. Because at the end of the day we’re all human and vulnerable and fallible. No matter how perfect we are or rich we are or even strong we are, we’re just a bout with lung disease or cancer away from death. This is humbling. And it’s beautiful.
Here is to being pride free. And the incredibly luck that is beating terminal illness. I’m so grateful.
I don’t have a great brain for remembering words, but time was I had a fairly decent brain for remembering numbers.
Until about 15 years ago, I remembered any date I saw in writing (which made history exams much easier), phone numbers without trying, useless statistics of any kind (I loved reading the Baseball Encyclopedia at night), and could memorize just about any number I put half a mind to.
I never realized how incredibly useful this was.
About 15 years ago I battled lung disease. And a neurologist told me that those top echelons of our brain are the most susceptible to oxygen deprivation, and I do believe that that battle shaved some of my capacity for numbers away (aka caused some brain damage 🙂 ). And although I am still above average for remembering numbers, it’s by no means fail-proof and have to work at it a lot harder to remember them.
For example, today I was asked by NWLMS for my six-digit ID number, a number I was assigned yesterday. It went like this:
CALL AGENT: “May I have your ID number?”
ME: “Uh.”
CALL AGENT: “It’s the six digit number we assigned you.”
ME: “Yes, I know. I need to find it in my email.”
Sigh.
That’s embarrassing and a pain in the butt.
Conversely, I remember this situation from 2005:
ME (on headset while driving): Do you have that phone number I need to call?
COLLEAGUE: Yes, but aren’t you driving?
ME: Yes, but you can just tell me. I’ll remember.
COLLEAGUE (skeptically): Okay, here it is. 513 blah blah blah blah blah blah (last digits removed to protect the innocent).
ME: Okay, thank you. (The number was filed away in my memory at that point. Later, my colleague commented how remarkable it was that I could remember a phone number like that on the first listen while driving. But it was just how my brain worked, and it probably came at a sacrifice to other parts of my brain like how to change a light bulb).
I never realized what a pain it is to have to try to memorize numbers. Everything is just a little bit harder now. And I have to have some kind of filing system that I never had to have before 10 years ago, although thank goodness the search feature on our devices makes it so much easier.
It’s such a gift to remember numbers. And to remember numbers without trying. I wish I’d appreciated it more when I had it. But I’m grateful it was taken from me only after the world’s search mechanisms had become so powerful. And I’m grateful to be at least average — it could have been far worse 🙂
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 