I recently stumbled upon a family photo of a friend of a friend whose kids I met fifteen years ago. Those darling little moppets are now young adults! How TF did that happen?
I know. I know.
Time passes. Children grow up. Blah blah blah.
Every person I know who has opted for — or fallen into — the life of raising a family chimes in with that same bewildered phrase: They grow up so fast.
And, yes, they do. It’s almost unbelievable what five years does to a kid. How did that wiggling little bundle of puke, poop, and utter adorableness morph into the monster demanding candy in line at the grocery store? Forget five years. Look at what the blink of an eye — twenty years — does to the little darlings!
And while the years are whizzing by from one birthday party to the next Christmas and, yikes it’s graduation already, parents are constantly clued in to their own mortality.
With each dead goldfish flushed and each tooth under a pillow replaced with cash, Mom and Dad are forced to face the reality of their own finite lifespan. Sure, it can get shunted aside in the chaos of raising kids but all it takes is the unprepared-for glimpse in a mirror or suddenly realizing the twins are turning ten this year to throw the truth of their approaching end into their faces.
Not having ever been bitten by the baby bug, five years to me has meant at most a change of jobs or a new way to wear my hair. Twenty? Hell, I’ve lived in the same apartment for twenty-two years and it feels like I moved in two years ago (sort of). I’ve glided — and stumbled, crawled, and tripped at times — through life with very few of those mortality markers.
I’m not sure that’s been such a good thing.
There was that weird day in the office when I thought the AC must be on the fritz. I was 52 — still feeling like I was 30 most days — and it took a couple of days to first admit and then accept that The Change was here. Change? What change? I didn’t sign up for any changes. Ok, losing that godawful monthly period business was a plus, but come on! Hot flashes, night sweats, the almost insurmountable urge to go up and down the street slapping morons yakking loudly on their cellphones? Who needed that?
People with children mark the passing of their lives by their progeny’s progress. I’ve come to mark that passing by what’s broken down this year. Five years ago it was a killer case of plantar fasciitis. Three years ago I got the fun of muscle spasms in my back…at Burning Man, no less (good times). Currently, the list has gotten too long and boring to even bother writing.
Suffice to say, my decades of cruising along with little to no recognition of how quickly time was passing are over.
Here’s a clue to the end of my blithe sense of being immortal: Five Wishes.
Turns out my powers of denial are not so superhuman powerful that I haven’t realized The End is Near(er than I’d like to admit). So for the past several years I’ve been fussing and Googling and starting this living will or that durable power of attorney thing that grownups are supposed to have.
Then a friend — whose partner of many years had recently died — clued us in to this incredibly helpful legal document that allows you to make most of those pesky end-of-life arrangements.
Do I really in my most secret heart of hearts actually believe I’m mortal and will die one day? Oh hell no. But all the evidence is there and hard to refute. Each year, my phone contains a few more phone numbers of people who won’t be answering if I call. If it’s happening to them, even the ones without children, it’s happening to me.
So if it turns out that sometime in the next decade or so I’ll be circling in for the final landing, having completed that Five Wishes means I can at least save someone a lot of trouble. Of course that means I actually have to fill the thing out and make sure my doctor and Trusted Representative have copies.
Until then, however, I’m operating on the assumption that I’ll live forever.
And there’s no forty-something-year-old “child” to indicate otherwise!
© Remington Write 2023. All Rights Reserved.
I, for one, and am sure I speak for all your friends, hope that you have many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many more happy years ahead of you. I also want to thank you so much for your constant, sweet and kind support. Thank you for reading my stuff, for listening to my new podcast, and most especially, for being my friend. ❤️