Tell Me You'll Live Now | 7.23.23
Tell Me You'll Live Now | 7.23.23
The Sunday Edition
Appears in this episode
I spilled a secret of epic proportions in last week’s Signal Fire, that Time Travel was real, that it exists now, and that you can enjoy it now, if you can afford the insane price hikes that the airline industry has been plagued by over the last few years. I spoke about how travel makes us children in the world again, and in turn, you beautiful souls responded, some in comments, some in personal emails about the subject. You spoke of the desire not only TO travel, the places you’ve always wanted to go, you told me about the things holding you back from the going, but also of the other things, closer to home, you’ve always wished you would have done, and all of this got me thinking, about you, yes, but about those I know in my own life that have always had a hankering to disappear into some great adventure, but just haven’t done so yet. Made me sad, this, and as I’ve gotten older and older, I’ve seen just how much we don’t always have the time we think we have left, to do all the things we want to do, and how we should stop waiting for some tragedy, some catastrophe, to finally take the leaps we were born for taking.
You’ve heard the stories, I’ve told a few here, about the people who plan some grand adventure for some day in some future, “when I retire” say they, “when the kids are off on their own,” say others. “We’ll go when we’re a little more financially secure,” some say and believe with all their hearts. “Next year, I promise, next year,” repeated annually until the first year to make such declarations are a decade in the past. You’ve heard the people with dreams of doing certain jobs, taking up certain hobbies, making certain phone calls, risking the failure to achieve something more. Then comes the standstill, and I offer no judgement on the why of why we end up standing still, but we do, and so often, so terrifyingly often, it takes a tragedy, an aforementioned catastrophe, or a brush with the end of ourselves, to snap into bright focus what truly matters. The question remains, why DO we wait for tragedy, for atrocity, for near-death experiences, to do what we want to do, see what we want to see, and say what we should have already said?
What is it in us, innate in our humanity, that is so adept at convincing the voice inside that it’s wrong, that it should shush itself into silence, and that somehow we, the second voice screaming louder than the whisper internal, actually know better? How can we watch others endure their own brushes with mortality, only to emerge transformed on the other side with a vigor renewed and surging, and then think the same lessons do not apply to us, too?
It must be a trait unique to human beings, one not shared by others in the animal kingdom, for I know so few species that are so slow to learn from their mistakes, and from the mistakes of others. We watch suffering, understand the ramifications of an action, or in this case an inaction, and we feel empathy for those afflicted. We sit, don't we, and listen to the stories they tell, to their pleading that we don't follow in those unfortunate footsteps, we nod our head solemnly and promise we will not. “Not me,” say we, we’ll grab the bull by the horns we reassure them, we’ll live our life while we’ve got life to live! Then again comes the standstill, then comes the great holding pattern on the runway of our own lives. Only when something comes crashing down in front of us, only when our own plane is on fire, do we move, do we take flight, hoping the rainfall will extinguish that burning.
As the poem above mentions, Typewriter Series #288 written so many years ago, we sit on the shorelines of our lives and watch as moments drip through our hands like grains of sand. We tell ourselves we’ve an entire beach to spare, no need to fret now, not yet. Forgetful lot, we humans, and one day we look down and realize that while we were waiting, the ocean came, as it always will, and stole so much of our beach from beneath us. How precious that handful becomes, when it’s the last of it all. That sand is our time, and our time is always running out, some falling from our fingertips, some siphoned back to the sea by waves that lull us with their song.
I am not an alarmist, not by any stretch, but after the months we’ve just come through, hell, after the years of pandemic and loss on such a monumental scale, how have we not all learned the lesson that life has always been trying to teach us. That time is what matters, it’s the only currency of value on this entire screwed up planet. We work ourselves to the (osteoporosis weakened) bone far beyond any reasonable point, we sit in desks at jobs we hate, we make empty promises that we’ll do the things, go to the places, see the people, and instead stay. So often, we stay.
I asked in the poem, and I ask again now: What are YOU waiting for? An accident? A giant push from a giant force? I ask you, and I hope you’ll answer, I hope we can start a giant dialogue where we support one another, what is it you’re waiting to do, to see, to say, and what are you waiting For? What’s holding you back? Why not yet? And most importantly, how can we help?
Then, when the dust settles and we’ve listened to one another, just tell me you’ll not wait. Tell me, you will live now. Right this very now.
Tell me so.
Tell me you’ll not wait,
not put it off for later.
Tell me you’ll live now.
Tell Me You'll Live Now | 7.23.23
I want to be a writer and this weekend I began that journey. It’s been so soul filling and I can’t wait for the future.
You see, for me, it was tragedy that halted my life 9 years ago. I went from really living, to giving all of myself to being a full-time caregiver to a quadriplegic, in addition to working full-time from home and raising my son. It was a labor of love, and never will I regret it, but after five years, I realized I’d completely lost myself and who I was. I spent the next couple of years crawling out of my dark cave and slowly discovering myself again. Two years ago, I finally got to take two full days and a night to “get away” and I drove only 40 minutes away and just relaxed and let someone take care of me. I started slowly squeezing in longer trail runs and trying to reconnect with people long pushed away after the tragedy.
In early June, my son graduated high school and turned 18 a week later. The day after his birthday, tragedy struck once again and while we thought we had been preparing ourselves for this inevitable end-of-life scenario, one can never truly prepare for the death of a loved one. The gaping hole left in our lives was ominous. The day after that, on June 11, my son and I both listened to “But This Fleeting Life” and wept together. We agreed that we weren’t going to let life escape us any longer. We spent the next month putting our lives back together as best we could. We went to a movie, we ate things we had been missing out on, we did inaccessible things we’d not been able to do in 9 years. Then, in early July, on a whim, we booked the cheapest flight we could. On July 16th, we were sitting in the airport for the first time again since he was 9. That morning in the airport we listened to “Travel Like Childhood” …
Sometimes it is catastrophic situations that take away the ability to really live. I’m not saying life halted during those nine years. We did still have adventures and lived, but it was very hard and different. The amount of work that went into making those “accessible” adventures happen made them not as enjoyable for me as I was the planner, provider, chauffeur, tour guide, caregiver, everything. Those adventures allowed our loved one to still live their best life while they were alive.
When I started taking my life back four years ago, it started with an hour-long escape to the nail salon once a month where I could be pampered with a foot massage and wine. Next it was longer trail runs through the forest, working my way up to being out there for four hours that was my saving grace during COVID. On those runs, I would once again feel alive and free. Last fall, I fixed up my sunroom, making it a reading nook and my own personal escape room where I could play my music or escape into a book or a movie.
A little over 3 years ago, during one early morning escape for a couple of hours to a local coffee shop, I met a stranger who quickly became the love of my life, my soulmate. So, while my life might have been on hold for 9 years, I didn’t really stop living. I just found an alternative way to live.
Even if you can’t just go somewhere far away, you can still have local or even at-home adventures! Don’t hesitate to take that little “trip”, even if it is to a local park for the day or to a different ethnic restaurant, pretending you are in a faraway country. Get dressed up and go to a movie or a concert. Read a good book and experience a whole different world. I’m still discovering cool things I’ve never experienced in my hometown, and I’ve lived here for 20 years!
Early tomorrow morning, I'm taking my first trip with my love and flying to Montana to experience sights I've only hoped and dreamed of seeing. I'm happy to still be "living" despite tragedies!