January 16, 2013 -- Say It Isn’t So

I turned sixty today, yep, six zero. You notice, I didn’t use numbers, I used letters. When I look at the numbers, it scares me. How did this happen so quickly? I still remember playing in my back yard as a seven-year-old. Now I can’t remember what happened yesterday.

I look in the mirror in the morning and I don’t recognize who I see. Part of the problem is now that I had cataract surgery, I can actually see in the mirror in the morning. In the past, I didn’t put my contacts in until right before I was leaving for work. Now I get the full 20-20 view of the mess I am after rolling out of bed.

Starting from the top down, I have more wasteland on the top of my head than in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. When I actually get out of the shower and comb my hair, it takes me longer than when I was in college and had a mop on top of my head. It now takes an Architectural degree to place every stray hair just right so it looks like I still have some. Thank God I can never see my self from behind, or I would have a heart attack.

Then I catch the bags under my eyes. It looks like I am trying out to be Santa’s helper at Christmas because the bags are big enough to hold half of his toys for that evening’s delivery. I tilt my head back so the lighting is just right and the bags disappear and I reassure myself that I don’t look too bad for my age. Now, if I could just walk around that way all day without running into a wall.

Then I notice my neck. I am starting to look like one of those women that have to wear a scarf around her neck all of the time to hide all of the extra skin. To alleviate this, I try to stretch my neck out as much as possible and again I find a solution. Now I just need to learn how to walk with my neck stretched out and my head at a 45 degree angle.

As I continue my journey down the mirror I am reminded of one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes. Kramer and George’s dad came up with the scheme of the manzier. I have now gotten to the point of having bigger boobs that several of the girls that I dated in high school. To top it off, one is bigger and droopier than the other. You think I could at least be symmetrical.

The mirror continues to lie to me because I can’t possibly have love handles that big. I only weigh 20-25 pounds more than I did in high school yet my love handles weigh 30. It just isn’t fair that the scale just yells a little, but the mirror screams bloody murder.

Luckily, it isn’t a full length mirror. I will save you the horrors that have happened as I continue the trip southward. Yet, I shudder to think what all of this will look like if I can pull off a miracle and revisit this at seventy.

It was four years ago that I was just days away from finding out that I had multiple myeloma. After that back breaking news, I wondered if I would ever see this day. It probably sounds bad, but it struck me that I might not live as long as either of my parents, both of whom battled several issues throughout their lives. My father was told at the age of 26 that he probably didn’t have long to live and my mother had cancer at 45. I, on the other hand, only had acne to deal with until I was 56.

I may grumble about the way that gravity has taken me down a path of no return, but I thank God that I have an opportunity to complain about it. I may have gotten thinner on top and thicker in the middle, but I hope that I have gotten better over these sixty years. Not sure how many I have left, but I plan on making the most of them.

My father and his father did not live long enough to hold a grandchild and it is my goal to break that streak. Now that statement should not be taken by either of my boys to do this anytime soon, just a little forewarning that it’s in my plans to find joy in the fact that their children will drive them crazy like they did to their father. Sometimes, you just have to enjoy the simple things in life especially when there is no mirror to look into.

January 11, 2013 - Less is More

At a very early age we learn that we want more. Usually it doesn’t matter what it is, unless it is homework or chores around the house. When Justin was very young, I would grab him by his hands and swing him around like a ride at an amusement park. When my arms were ready to give out and I would set him down, he had just one comment that he would make through his giggles, “Again!”

When a child goes out for Halloween, he wants more candy. It doesn’t matter how much he has, he wants more. When Christmas comes around, it doesn’t matter what is under the tree, there is a glance around the room for one more present when the frenzy to open presents finally stops. When the teenage girl looks in her closet for shoes, there never seems to be enough.

The college freshman looks around his Psychology 101 class and wonders why there aren’t more pretty girls. When he shows up for his first frat party, he wonders why there isn’t more beer. As soon as you get married, you look at your checking account and wonder why there isn’t more money. When you have your first child, you look around the house and want more space.

When you get your first big promotion, you want a bigger office although you know deep down inside that you won’t do a better job with one. When you go on your first cruise, you look at the boat that is docked next to yours at the first port and wish you were leaving on it since it is bigger and must be more fun. When we buy our first SUV, we look at the inside room instead of the price tag and MPG.

As we age, it tends to slow down but never really stops. We do not wonder that we will have enough money to survive when we retire, but how nice we can live when we get to that point. Even after we get to the point of living in a retirement community, it is how many hours we can nap during the day.

We are born wanting more and it usually never stops. When Maria, or first au pair, came to the United States to watch the boys, she was amazed at how big everything was. She could not believe how much we decorated our homes for Christmas. The size of our grocery stores was overwhelming and we have a full aisle of cereal choices rather than a handful. It didn’t matter what it was, it was huge. I had never really thought about it, but she was right.

When I was growing up, my parents owned a grocery store. It wasn’t anything special, but people from the neighborhood would do their shopping there and it had just about everything they needed. Today, however, it would fit inside the produce department at Walmart. You couldn’t buy an oil filter for your car, but you could buy everything you needed to make a meal. Those stores no longer exist. If it isn’t big and offer us everything under the sun, we won’t go there.

In our minds, more is always better. If we don’t have multiple selections of what we need we are disappointed. If we don’t have something more than our neighbor, we wonder what it wrong with our life. We have become spoiled. It isn’t good enough to hit a home run, we need to hit it father than anyone else. Maybe we need to just enjoy what we have and not how big it is. It would certainly make life simpler.

Three months ago I convinced Dr. Mikhael to let me go from receiving chemotherapy every two weeks to every three weeks. In the case of chemotherapy, cavities, bills and wives, more is not better. In this particular case, less was just as good. When I received my results just before the new year, I could not have been more pleased. It was probably the best overall results that I have received. My kidneys were hanging in the with a 1.9 creatinine (which is as good as I ever get), all of my blood counts (red, white and platelets) were all in the normal range and my cancer counts were the lowest they have ever been. If a doctor looked at my results and didn’t know what was wrong with me, he would have no idea that I have cancer. I will not see Dr. Mikhael for three months which is s first.

We go through life always wanting more instead of appreciating what we have. We too often look past the journey and only worry about the result. Too often getting that next big raise or promotion or new car or house consumes us. We need to learn to make the most of who we are and what we have. That doesn’t mean that you cannot strive to be better and have more, it just means that it should not be all encompassing. I made a promise to myself that I would not wish my life away at the beginning of 2012. No more wishing it was 5 o’clock or Friday or time for vacation. I enjoyed what I had and who I was with. In the end, we are not defined by what we have but what we accomplished. Make sure you don’t waste time worrying about that next big thing, just enjoy your life’s journey.