Another Close Call

Do you ever ask the people in your family, "What are you doing for me on a daily and weekly basis?"

A friend of mine did.

Now she's divorced and her son has moved out, leaving her with a house, a dog, computer and a phone.

She's the sole caretaker of her parents, after her sister died, who was 300+ pounds and her heart couldn't keep up - a great "kid" who literally died at 42 of a broken heart.

We're good friends who have no qualms about sharing our life stories with one another because we have no hangups or emotional baggage getting in the way, no reason to ask each other what we've done for the other on a daily or weekly basis.

I am secure in my marriage and secure in my emotion-based thought set so I can spend time here with you, rather than in paper journals, looking at what is and what might have been.

When I hung around in an office and dealt with business decisions on a minute-by-minute basis, I often asked myself what was the business doing for me on a daily, weekly or life basis?

Sure, it provided me an easy way to feed myself through the collection of labour credits to exchange for nourishment supplements at restaurants and grocer's markets.

It also allowed me to build my investment portfolio and enjoy "free" travel to foreign destinations while conducting business outside the office.

But what was it really doing for me?

I'm a middle-aged guy, looking at life from the comforts of a study piled high with old books and memorabilia.

It's a perspective that I held when I was six, looking out the window in first grade math class, surrounded by the nurturing world of academia which hopes more than passive learning's taking place.

So, in a sense, I have always heralded this position of sitting by the window and wondering in my wandering thoughts.

Socialising has always been a matter of reverifying my understanding of the human condition.

Humour has been my way of filtering out the dusty seriousness that floats out of people's mouths and actions, virtually turning down the volume of voices shouting, "But it really is an emergency this time," another cry of "Wolf!" that I can see doesn't exist.

Do we all tell ourselves, "This is what I do but not who I am?"

In recent conversations with my friend, picking up where we stopped talking 18 years ago, we joke about the difference between what we have done and who we think we are.

Life is a comedy, a grand illusion, where punchlines are punchlines for some joke we think we see but don't.

Meanwhile, we have to figure out how to raise our kids and get along while pretending we're serious most or part of the time.

The parents who can reveal the jokes while instilling a solid set of ethics and morals are the ones I praise.

We all die.

We all have to share resources while we're alive.

Everything else is just pretending.

I'm sorry that the people in North Africa are resorting to deadly violence to sort out how to redistribute resources that have been hoarded by a few.  Unfortunately, it is the way of our species - we are young and unable to see the bigger picture.

Nor do we see where those with a large number of social connections can drop millions of pebbles all across the pond and hide their intentions in the cancelling wave patterns.

I will not be remembered.  This writing is not significant enough to survive the ravages of population shifts.

Thus, at the end of the day, I have my wife, our cats, our house, our investments, her friends, my friends and our friends and family.

Right before I asked my wife for her hand in marriage, I asked myself if she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I narrowed down the mental list of potential candidates, looking back at the women I'd dated or with whom I had established a strong, lasting relationship.

I knew who I was and what I wanted.

I also knew that I probably knew little about the women and what they wanted.

Why do people get married?  To raise children in a legal manner.  To honour their religious upbringing.  For tax savings.  To make themselves (or one of them) a legal resident of a political entity, perhaps.

Why did I get married?  Because it was time.  I held a postsecondary diploma and was ready to establish myself financially.  Having children was not a priority for me.  Sitting by the window thinking and writing was/is.

Thus, which woman would most tolerate my desire to sit and write?  Which woman would tell herself, "Rick is not the kind of person who will take the kids to school, play handyman, chair the parent-teacher association or do more than a cursory amount of housecleaning but hopefully will earn enough for us to have a comfortable, if not extravagant, life together"?

I narrowed my choices down to two people - my wife, of course, and the person with whom I have enjoyed conversations over the past few days.

My wife and I shared a romantic story that had/has a life of its own, one I've recounted here or elsewhere many times, starting when we were 12 at summer camp, acting as penpals for years and dating the first time our freshman year in college, with my "romantic, lovesick poet" phase generating many a poem we've all written in our heads in one way or another when first falling madly in love (and which I've spared tormenting you with here (at least so far (just wait until I get too bored to write a blog entry one day))).

The other person was/is a person many people enjoy being around.  We never had overly romantic notions about each other, although we can describe them and imagine them, such as enjoying a quiet walk in the woods or along the beach, holding hands like two companions.

We agree we have made the best choices.  She has her wonderful son and a life of her own, including an early retirement.  I have a wonderful wife and have taken a midlife retirement.  As a bonus, we remain great friends without a worry about one or the other having any ulteriour sexual intentions, so we can talk about anything without wondering about arousing the other's hormones.

All the while, large historic changes of our species go on around us, no matter how much we care or feel involved, emotionally or physically.

This is my life, sitting here, looking out the window at the rain, water dripping off the hanging gutter, no birds to be seen, creating an alternative universe while musing about the one that we say exists, because we can touch trees and watch one another's births and deaths and all the stuff in-between.

This is how I describe happiness.  I thank all of you, including my close friends and family, for making this happiness possible.  I hope every one of us can find this kind of simple happiness in our lives - it's priceless.