Preparing for Life
I think I’ve spent most of six decades waiting for my life to happen. I can momentarily appreciate the here and now, but then feel compelled to get back to the business of planning. Of getting ready. Cleaning, building, saving, rearranging—waiting for the real part of my life to begin. It is hard to realize, at any given moment, that life is actually occurring while one’s brain is busy making plans.
Now I’m on the other side of life’s hilly trajectory. My husband died suddenly. That wasn’t in the plan. Kirk and I won’t be traveling to Australia, Europe, or the Pacific Islands after all. Things look and feel different—but still there’s a “To Do” list on my bedside table every morning. I take breaks from my chores and the business of “getting ready,” but overall I think I’m still, somehow, waiting for life to begin. My new life.
How do I get over this mindset? Kirk sometimes preached the philosophy of finding joy in the doing of chores. (He’d read about it.) I, his compulsively busy wife, usually scoffed.
But really, I do get it. While riding the lawn tractor, I can just revel in the glory of living in this beautiful place and enjoy the smell of fresh mown grass. When weeding gardens, I’ll allow my behind to hit the dirt and my eyes to stare at the sky— looking for egrets or herons.
I know these micro-mini-vacations are exceptionally difficult to accomplish while managing a career, raising children, nursing an illness—whether it be one’s own or somebody else’s—or any combination therein. We get so busy we can only imagine “living.” On a beach. On a mountain top. Wherever your fantasy place is.
As long as we are alive, we’ll have obligations to tend to, even if it is only breathing, taking our meds, and pulling up our blankets. If joy is the absence of obligation, we’re in trouble. Life cannot be limited to the fantastical destination retirement plan or we will only get to live a very short time—and some of us not at all.
Kirk had it right: While getting ready for bed, he would congratulate himself for all the little things he’d gotten done during daylight hours—went to the store, carried in some firewood, etc.—while I would berate myself for not having done more. Which is the healthier end to a day?
Likewise, he could overlook the piles of branches eternally waiting to be chipped into mulch and appreciate the beauty of our pocket of wilderness, while my focal point was the crap pile marring the landscape because we could never get around to attaching the chipper to the tractor. Which of us had the nicer view?
Between covid and the snowstorm, I was extremely isolated for most of last week. I spoke to no one face to face and had only a couple short conversations on the phone. (Plenty by email.) But I actually enjoyed myself (!) cleaning through years of old papers and receipts. On my deathbed, I doubt I will wish I had spent more time “spring cleaning.” But having a good time while doing it—even though it might signify some sort of incurable nesting dementia— should probably be the feeling we all strive for daily: Enjoying what we are doing, rather than wishing we were doing something else.
To appreciate the small stuff, rather than sweat it, will serve me better in the long run. Especially if I never get to the palm-tree covered island in my long-range plan.