Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow

Finding a way to appreciate where I am in life

I found myself, during our strange, second Covid Christmas, sandwiched between my 22-year-old daughter and my 89-year-old mother. This year, more than ever, the umbilical connection between us tugged at me as I, Janus-in-waiting, observed, monitored and enjoyed the miraculous luxury of three generations together.

My daughter has tattoos. I like them, which surprises me. I understand the urge to mark life’s more seismic events upon your body. They sear themselves into our brains after all, so perhaps tattoos are just the outer version of the inner burns.

My mother’s body bears witness in more traditional ways – watching her navigate its frailty and bentness is a daily learning, a meditation. She taught me to walk when I was a baby, and now, she teaches me how I will walk when I am old: how to reach for this, bend for that, move around the obstacles like an ancient, patient stream. I try not to help.

Living between these bodies is an odd mixture of joy and grief. My daughter thrums. Her life force changes the atmosphere in the room as soon as she enters. We all receive the electrical charge and, once again, we dance.

I find myself pondering my place in life a lot these days. It’s easy to do; I’m at the point in life where, at least in an actuarial sense, I’m on the back end of the bell curve. The truth is that I’m almost certainly past the halfway point, though none of us can have any idea how much time we have left on this Earth.

I’ve become much more conscious of my place in between generations. Though my father died a year and a half ago, my mother is still alive and still pushing on. Admittedly, she doesn’t move nearly as well nor as quickly as she used to, but she still has her wits about her, and for that, I’m grateful, especially as my mother-in-law is dealing with dementia.

I’m old enough that getting up in the morning means taking stock of various aches and pain. I no longer move as well nor as quickly as I did in my youth. A few degenerating discs from a college soccer injury have come back to haunt me and prove that years of contact sports can and often do take a toll on a body.

I look at my nieces and nephews, all energy and motion, without the limitations of a middle-aged body battered by years of abuse and misuse. I watch them do things I used to be able to do in the ways I used to do them, and it’s easy to be envious. Of course, I’ve traded the physical wear and tear for wisdom in the hope that the trade-off will prove to be worth it.

In my younger years, I never thought of limitations. I don’t know that I felt indestructible because I frankly never thought about injuries and the hurdles they brought with them. I was a goalkeeper in college, and the seven concussions I suffered during my last season may (or may) not be related to my history of migraines. It was the early ‘80s, back when you “got your bell rung,” woke up on the sideline, and went back in to do it all over again.

No one thought about traumatic brain injuries, CTE, or any other risks now known to have accompanied repeated concussions. I had seven (that I remember) within six months. Has that come back to haunt me? Who knows? Would I change anything? Eh, probably not. I was always ready, willing, and able to throw myself back into the fray, even when in retrospect it may not have been the wisest choice.

It turns out that I wasn’t indestructible, after all, and I’m reminded of that every morning when I drag myself out of bed.

On the other end of the spectrum, I look at my mother and wonder how much of her experience foreshadows what my life will be like twenty years down the road. Will I still have my health? My mobility? My independence? My wife? What will my life look like? Of course, there’s no way to know, but my father had a stroke at 53. He had ongoing cardiac issues and he dropped dead in his yard at 82.

I’ve had my own cardiac issues, and I’m frankly lucky to be alive. After my cardiologist discovered a 95% blockage (she called it a “widowmaker”) in one of my main arteries, I now have two arterial stents. I’ve gotten my cholesterol down, and things are good now, but what might have happened a week or a month or six months down the road?

I miss having the energy of my nieces and nephews, the being able to go all day and most of the night. Now, most days find me in bed by 10 pm, sometimes earlier, and I’m OK with that. The favorite part of my day has become crawling into bed with my wife at the end of the day and knowing that I’ll be fast asleep in minutes.

I’ve grown accustomed to the energy and vitality of those who are a third to a half my age, and I have no pretensions of trying to keep up with them. That ship has long since sailed, and I’m glad it has. I’ve had my time, and I’m at a point where slower and quieter is preferable to trying to keep up with the young ‘uns.

It’s easy to wonder what my outlook will be 15 or 20 years down the road when life has slowed even further, and movement becomes ever more challenging. What will happen when getting up a hill no longer means walking but getting into a car and having someone drive me to the top? How will I adjust to the realization of severely diminished capacity and having to depend on others for even the most basic things?

For now, I’m left to wonder about tomorrow as I endeavor to get through today in the best way I can. But I don’t want to get so caught up in wondering about the future that I forget to live in the moment.

Because the present moment is not only all I have, it’s also pretty damned good.

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