On July 31st, I was vibrating with
excitement. In the days of technology and computers and smart phones and
tablets, we have access to more tools and resources and gadgets that can
organize or maintain or simply keep track of seemingly every activity we choose
or do not choose to engage in. Some of these tools I use. Take, oh I don’t
know, Facebook event invitations. Yet others, for reasons unbeknownst to me,
never quite stuck. The most prominent of which is the digital calendar. I’ve
tried. Boy have I tried. But there is something gravitationally controlling my
documentation of plans and events and dates and outings and games and concerts
and meetings: PAPER. I can’t get enough of it. I hate taking notes. I hate
writing anything more than 10 words. I hate carrying around extra items. But
there is some sense of accomplishment, some sense of reality, when I take my
Bic Atlantis black ballpoint and fill up the day-by-day of my life, one month
at a time.
August was a beautiful month. As I
look back, only 5 days remain blank. There were so many things scheduled, I was
counting the hours for the calendar to flip. After some changes and struggles
and challenging situations, it was my immerse-myself-in-everything-I-possibly-can-for-as-many-days-as-I-can-until-I’m-so-tired-I-have-to-take-a-day-off-work-just-to-sleep
phase. And it worked. All the way through my August 31st day of rest. I burned
it at both ends. I rode ten roller coasters, played six rounds of golf,
five softball games, drafted three fantasy football teams, attended three
concerts, three dinners, a baby shower, a wedding, and a movie. Read ‘em and
weep. I went all-in and doubled up.
Looking at the next six Saturdays,
my calendar is solid, beginning with this extended Labor Day weekend of fun at
the lake. This morning I sent a text that included the quote ‘already looking
forward to the weekend,’ and c’mon, who’s not? Take polls, ask friends, email
your coworkers, call your parents, and please, someone tell me if you can find
more than one grouch that isn’t looking forward to the weekend, even if they
qualify it by saying ‘well I look forward to any time away from work’ or ‘well
it’s a long weekend, so it’s more exciting.’ It doesn’t matter. We are all apparently
programmed to long for moments away from our responsibilities and everything
else is just getting in the way. Why, I fell victim to this thinking not 5
hours ago. And why wouldn’t I? I got golf, boating, partying, and golf again.
Of course that’s better than what I do when I’m at work. Of course, of course.
But, maybe, if all I can do is count down the minutes until the weekend starts,
I shouldn’t be alive in the first place.
Work isn’t as fun as golf, but if I
spend all my time wishing it were another time, then I’m literally wasting
time. Being alive is fucking amazing. Every capability that we have is nearly
inconceivable. Scratch that. It is inconceivable. I can’t honestly comprehend
the idea of life. There. I said it. And I’m not ashamed. You can tell me a
thousand times how the brain sends signals to the heart and the heart pumps
blood through veins and our lungs inhale one thing and exhale another and our
kidneys and our muscles and whatever and whatever and whatever and everything
and anything, and I can answer the questions on an exam and pass biology, but
my brain does not have the capability to truly understand existence. Evolution:
go ahead and explain it without sounding like a lunatic. It’s not possible. I
believe science. But I don’t understand it. The fact that I am here, doing
this, thinking this, admitting this, living this, is unbe-fucking-lievable.
So instead of wavering over line
between wishing it was the weekend and folding my laundry, mentally escaping my
immediate activity, hoping that the also incomprehensible notion of time would
inexplicably quicken, I will attempt to teeter between different thoughts.
There’s either the task at hand, or the absolute truth that I am alive, and the
unbridled appreciation for my opportunities in life. It’s the anti-Office
Space. It’s something I heard in an amazing song many years ago, something
which resonated in me so wholly, so starkly, that it’s discouraging that I
still have to remind myself this thing. It was spoken by the now-Oscar-winning-rapper
Common, the song is called ‘Be,’ and the line goes:
“Never looking back or too far in
front of me, the present is a gift, and I just wanna be.”
