Time remains the forever-finite commodity. You can’t get more time. It can’t be accumulated or stockpiled. It is not transactional or transferrable. You get an allotment. You can carelessly squander it or be too frugal and timid. Both options might leave you with regrets for how you spent it. Once time passes, it is lost. It can’t be reaccumulated or salvaged. It is the one absolutely, non-renewable resource. When we are young, we usually have little money (but an abundance of time). We focus on the accrual of money, assuming we have all the time in the world. And then, when we have the money, we are thwarted with a keen awareness of how little time lies ahead. We call it mid-life but we must be honest – before my kids were graduated from high school, I was past my mid-life.
Today, I am sixty. Seems hard to conceptualize. That means I am an elderly person. And yet, I do not think of myself as part of that demographic. I suppose to other I must. And yet, there is stuff I intend to do. Stuff I haven’t started. To learn something new. To do something that demands a chunk of time, that requires a time investment – as if I have an abundance of time ahead.
I intended to walk the Camino in Portugal, The Central Way from Porto to Santiago de Compestela. I planned it a year ago. I have the lovely ability to take three weeks from work (now). And then the year swayed sideways. And I hurdled a series of potential medical hurdles – common as we age. That thing in my pancreas was not a tumor, I could stop planning my death before Christmas. The deep, ill-defined lump in my breast compressed out on close pancake-smashing of the tissue. Also not cancer. The “lets just do a scan and check” MRI of the brain to verify I didn’t inherit the aneurysms that run in my family only to discovered a 7mm intracranial aneurysm behind my left eye in a location that was inoperable. The spectacular part of medical advances is that a pipeline diverter stent can be deployed into a brain artery, covering the aneurysm and preventing the rupture.
And none of these potentially massive medical events manifested. Instead, a torn meniscus – a mere 3-5mm gasket tear – has kept me from walking the Camino. And landed me in an offloader brace for the next 6 weeks.
And the sense of time feels sharp, like the smell of ozone after a lightening storm. How much time do I have? I want to drift and wallow in leisurely satisfaction, never rushing or hurrying. And yet, I want to get stuff done. Plant an orchard (grow trees grow!). Walk the Camino. Write (another) book – maybe a series. Maybe see a grandchild? I hope I leap forward with abandon toward some new discovery to the very last moment of my life.
