Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while know that I make an annual trip home to visit my parents in the New Mexico desert. Each year I end up blogging here about how I felt and what I learned.
2015: In the Wilderness
2016: Stars in the Desert
2017: On Age and Time
2018: The Big Empty
2019: The Routines that Get Us Through
This year, it was apparent that my earlier visit (to provide support while my mom had surgery) didn’t count, so I made a second visit. The visit was very short but, as always, it got me thinking. In this case it was thinking about the future.
My parents are quite elderly. I was born when my mom was a week shy of 41 and I’m 47 this year (12th house profection — yay). My older sister was 18 when I was born. My parents are as old as some people’s grandparents.
What this means in practical terms is that my parents’ future is shortening and, as it shortens, it becomes more proscribed. There are fewer options because there’s less time.
Here’s a real life example: When my parents retired, one of their goals was to travel. They’d spent their entire lives living frugally and saving and wanted to go to all kinds of cool places in their golden years. But medical issues made unplanned travel difficult and organized tours often have a cap on participant age (for reasons of risk and insurance). They managed two trips, but it was hardly the adventure of a lifetime that I think they pictured.
Another: My mom painted for most of her life and was pretty good. She had some sales and was part of a co-op gallery and hung in local locations and did art / craft shows. However memory issues have made it hard for her to paint and, to my great surprise, she gave it up about two years ago.
Another: My parents had a little plot of land in the mountains of New Mexico that they’d purchased in, oh probably the 1960s. Growing up, we’d get our Christmas trees there and I’d camp with friends. Then they pulled up a tiny camper trailer and over the years they hand-built a lovely cabin around it. They had a cistern and collected rain water for showers. They brought up fresh water for cooking/drinking and had an old fashioned sewage setup. They put in a propane tank for heat and cooking. Finally they ran a line up the road for electric lights and radio. They made furniture and my mom sewed cushions. It had a tiny sleeping loft and a master bedroom. They sold it a couple of years ago. Admittedly, I live 3500 miles away and my sister is nearing 70. They could no longer take care of it and the trip and lack of oxygen was too much. The family who purchased is has young children and it makes me happy to think they will grow up enjoying it.
Some might say that these were bad decisions or mistakes, but I don’t really think I can do that. Who am I to judge the choices they made and make? Who am I to say what the last mile to the end of life entails? All I know is that the last chapter of everyone’s novel always ends the same. And the closer you get, the easier it is to tell the future.
Step back and think about your goals and the life you want to create for yourself. How much time does that life take to create? How many options does it require? How long can you wait before making it happen?
I talk to a surprising number of people who want to write a book. Clients and such who consider authorship as part of their goals. I always give the same advice: write. Start now and just keep going. I mean, if you write a page a day, you’ll have a novel in a year (and a nonfiction book in maybe half the time). Maybe the novel will be terrible — it will almost certainly be unpublishable (if the advice of published authors is to be believed). But if you don’t write your page a day, then you will have… nothing. For the record, I’ve only ever written one non-fiction book, so I’m hardly an expert on writing or publishing (unless blogging counts). But it’s obvious that in order to be a writer, you have to write.
And there’s something else to consider… Every year that passes without you writing is one year less where you can be a writer. One less year of your life left to create the life you want. Now sure, we could all go at any minute. And that awareness can help us enjoy each and every minute of our current lives. This is a thing. It’s important. But if you want to change your life, you’ve got to admit it may take some time.
Let’s say you go back to college in the spring. You enroll in a course to study cooking or philosophy or whatever your dream is. Getting done will take you some amount of time, likely years, and some amount of cost and sacrifice. Maybe it will be worth it and maybe it won’t (hint, a 100K philosophy degree is probably in the latter category) but you will have accomplished the goal. Now, two years into a four year degree, you could get hit by a bus and killed (sorry). So yes, live life now and enjoy what you have. But don’t decide not to go back to school because of that risk. Because if you don’t go back for another decade, then that’s not only a decade where you aren’t doing what you want NOW. It’s also a decade less that you can do what you want when you are done.
As with Bill and Ted, the clock is always ticking. And it really does impact the decisions you make. A couple of years ago I was considering whether I wanted to get my MBA. It’s a logical thing to do from a career standpoint and my company offers partial tuition reimbursement. Plus it’s the kind of thing that’s possible to do while still working. But you know what? The ROI just isn’t there. If I were a decade younger, I’d get that time and expense back in terms of increased salary and opportunities. It if were possible a decade ago, I probably would have gone for it.
But you know what, that’s not the life I want long term anymore and I know that my effort will not give me the return I want. Which means that the window has closed and I will never get an MBA because the person who wanted / needed it is 10 years behind me. Now I want different things and I’m not willing to wait.
Don’t wait.
Start now. Keep going. Make a plan, figure out a first step, and take it. It might be the wrong step, but that don’t matter. It might be the wrong plan, but who cares? The only real mistake is waiting.
I can see the future and so can you. The last chapter always ends the same way.
