…AND KEEPS ON TICKING

Another day, another year and what to make of that?

I make S. crazy with my take on birthdays, and many things.  I see things differently.  I try to explain my rationale and she isn’t persuaded. It makes sense to me. That’s good enough.  Here it is for your consideration.  You will understand and you’re free to agree or disagree.  I like what Daniel Moynihan said, “You are entitled to your own opinion, Sir. You are not entitled to your own facts.”   The fact is I will have completed 86 years. Opinions on what I have done in those  years range from a mistake, an opinion, to fantastic, another opinion.  S. and I share our opinions frequently and even when we disagree, we rise above the differences. I consider S. one of my life’s enduring gifts I found when she opened the door in early August, 1996.

As I conclude one year and begin another, the reality is I am completing 86 years and starting number 87.  The birth date celebrates the completion, and for all of next year I am regarded as 86 when, in fact, I am into the 87^th.  For all of the coming year I am 86, except from my perspective, because I want credit for all the time I have been given and put in.  I am therefore more than what I will wear for the coming months.  It’s OK because no one is going to describe age as a year, plus however many days or months.  In my world, the plus is a benefit and I’ll take it.  All things considered, I am fine with being 86, very fine, grateful and glad.

I consider what I have made of the years, a history lived large and well.  There are constellations of families – my family of origin, a nuclear family, an extended family, a blended family.  They have names, faces and personalities.  I see each one of them, consider their lives for however many years and how I am connected to them. There are collections of friends and neighbors, communities where I have lived, colleagues and classmates in various settings, another panoply of wonderful people in my life.  Some are covered by dust, lost in time and nearly forgotten.   If I add up the numbers the total is several thousand. I have stories about many of them that range from joyful and amusing to sad and painful.  That’s life, isn’t it?

My life is blessed with love, from those near and dear and from others far and wide. I am well-loved and I have loved well.  Happy and content in who I am and who I’ve become over the years – learning, changing and growing, it is, as they say, a work in progress.  Until it isn’t. I have a different response to “we are all a work in progress.”   Don’t believe it. There is regression and I will attend personally to that later. Near the top of the list, besides heart disease and cancer, are alzheimers and dementia, two different diseases, and farther down, the decline of the body and brain’s abilities to function at a high level, just ahead of ultra-right conservatism. These, I believe, are works in regression, not progress and moving forward.

My heart disease is under control and whether it will be that which takes me out in the end or something else, I am neither concerned nor fearful.  I trust others who care for me and about me to make decisions if that day comes when I cannot. They know what to do. I settled in with my mortality 44 years ago and death became more of a friend, not the enemy.  I subscribe to Bonhoeffer’s “Stations On the Road to Freedom”  – Discipline, Action, Suffering and Death.  You can read them here:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7303483-discipline-if-you-set-out-to-seek-freedom-then-learn

I took a life lesson from my Dad, actually many from him and my mother.  I’ve told this story before so if you’ve heard it you can skip to the next paragraph.  Sitting in church one Sunday morning, at age 9, I see suited men passing large brass plates back and forth, row by row, coming closer to where we are sitting on those hard, oak pews.  I see people putting in money and envelopes filled with money.  We had one of those envelopes that my parents put in every Sunday.  I turn and say to my Dad,  “Can I take some out?”   With his usual candor and wisdom, he said “Of course you may, but remember always to put in more than you take out.”   I did not know then that those words would become a mantra in my life and work.

I wrote a brief memoir in 2013, “Seven Decades: A Learning Memoir” and a kind of sequel in 2017 for my 80^th birthday, “Pearls From An Irritated Mind” a collection of eighty, 55-word stories.  These were attempts to get some of the record down on paper for myself and that I could share with others interested in knowing more.  Neither of those books is the whole story, and I do not have the talent nor the discipline to attempt anything much larger.  For now, this blog fulfills my desire for regular writing exercises. I have promised myself to do more creative writing this coming year and I am taking some steps in that direction.

This life began one Thursday morning at 10:00 AM, June 24, 1937.  I don’t know how many times I  have been asked for that date in order to confirm I am who I say I am.  Sometimes, just to be a contrarian, I add the day and time. Some find it amusing and laugh.  Others must think I can be a pain in the ass.  Yes, that’s true.  I find that many customer service people enjoy a more personal conversation with a little humor so why not add a bit of pleasure to a job that must be rather dull at times?  Part of my mission in life is to help people celebrate their lives, their work and their relationships.  I try to give the best of who I am wherever I go, to whomever I meet and enjoy along the way.  My life has been challenging and rewarding.  It still is on many fronts and I wouldn’t have it any other way.   We are blessed beyond measure and for that I remain grateful and humble.   Happy Birthday indeed!

*Thanks to Zulfa Nazer for the appropriate, featured photo!