Is there any sound more powerful, authoritative, magical, than the Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick of 60 Minutes?
That sound whisks me back 40 years, maybe even 50 years. To sitting in my grandparents’ living room on a Sunday evening after a family dinner. To All In The Family, and Barney Miller, and Mel’s Diner. To grandma and grandpa (and my cousin Gus) still alive and well. To mom and dad being in their youthful prime, Karrie being a kid. To knowing that my school friends would be at school with me the next day. It takes me back to Little League baseball. Youth basketball. 89er football. Dungeons and Dragons.
Carter and/or Reagan are President. People still have pensions. Newspapers are still a thing. I have my entire life still ahead of me. And grandma and grandpa (and Gus) are still alive and well. And we’re all still young.
60 Minutes isn’t perfect. It’s an entertainment show. But how much I love that Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick. And how it whisks me back in time to youth and Sunday evenings with my family.
I love that Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick so much. It’s magical. It’s a time machine. And I don’t even know (or care) if 60 Minutes is still on the air. I’m just grateful to the person who thought, You know what would be great? Opening the show with a giant pocket watch that goes Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick. Whereever they are, thank you for the magic you continue to bring me.
They are magical in that they transport me back to my youth before I graduated college, not so much in the memories but in the feelings which then also elicit some memories.
I remember waking up as a kid, pulling on shorts and a t-shirt, eating a bowl of cereal, and then feeling like the rest of the day was mine. When I was younger I ventured out into the neighborhood (which we could do in the 70s), and when I was a little older we’d play baseball or basketball. Sometime around 4pm, my parents or grandparents would take the cover off the pool and then we’d all swim.
In college, July was a break from classes. I’d usually work a meaningless hourly job that ended when my shift ended. And then two things would happen: either I’d love that job and would have a terrific summer, or I wouldn’t like the job and that would make me look forward to returning to classes again.
But those are the memories. And it’s not the memories that make July mornings awesome. It’s the feelings.
July in Seattle is sunny. And not usually too hot. So much of the year in Seattle is gloomy. Which creates heaviness and foreboding in my spirit. But in July? In the morning? I’m rested from a day of sleep. And the sky is clear. And the sun is fresh, and still behind the trees. And my spirit just feels sooooo free. And suddenly I feel like anything good is possible. Anything I want to accomplish is possible.
For me, July is hope. It’s a happiness drug. And I love it so much. Like a drug.
Sometime soon the summer will start to come to a close. But for now we’re in the heart of it. It’s a sunny mild morning in July. And the world just feels so amazing.
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 