Can you believe that we are at the penultimate essay of our year-long Abecedarium?  This process has been a blast.  I admit that I have mostly forced a title starting with the appropriate letter of the alphabet based upon whatever was streaming through my head at the time.  However, that has made me appraise my ponderings more deeply, as well as more frequently, between essays.  I hope you have enjoyed this journey as much as I have.  These last couple of weeks, I’ve been ruminating on Yesterdays.

This past week I had an MRI (annual screening test).  The scan takes about a half hour, so while I’m lying prone on the sled inside that tube listening to the banging of whatever bangs inside the MRI, I have a lot of time to think.  And I often think about my mortality.  This year, I asked them to play ‘70s music.  So, in addition to thinking about my life looking forward, with the music of my youth blaring in my ears I was also thinking about the years past.

I’ve noted often that I have struggled my entire adult life with living in the present.  Listening to those songs from my youth, I marveled at how easily I lived in the moment back then.  Those songs made me think of warm spring days, lying on the pole vault mats after track practice listening to music and talking.  They made me think of long summer days, which I mostly spent in the high school gym working on my jump shot.  They made me think of the first day of school in the fall, full of hope and anxiety.  And everyone always looked so different when we came back together to start the school year!  Time passed slowly back then.  Four years in high school felt like an eternity.  Four years in college went by so much faster.  Four years in grad school passed so quickly!  Well, individual days seemed slow, but the entire process seemed fast.  Now, four years of just “life” passes in the blink of an eye.  I want it to slow down.  I want to savor each day more because I appreciate each day more now.

Earlier this month, my bestie had a milestone birthday and a few of us jetted off to New Orleans to celebrate.  At one point, I started giving her some good natured grief about getting older.  Asking her how she felt about this birthday, she didn’t miss a beat.  She said, “It’s a privilege.”  I absolutely loved that response.  She’s right.  Many people don’t get the privilege of reaching our age.  When I was in my 20s and 30s, “60” seemed really old.  With life expectancies at that time barely in the 70s, I guess that thinking wasn’t too far off the mark.  It also seemed very far away for me.  I barely gave a thought to what my life might be like in my 60s or what I should be doing in my 20s and 30s to prepare for that stage in my life.  (Except for saving money.  Thank you, Mom and Dad, for teaching me basic fiscal literacy!)  My thoughts were filled with building my career, building my social life, always focused on “getting through” the current stressor.  It wasn’t until I retired that I started realizing that what came next was less important than living fully today.

I don’t, of course, live mindfully every day.  I have my routines.  There is the class-of-the-day at the Y.  All the daily challenges on my iPad games.  All the email newsletters that need to be read.  Then it’s lunchtime already.  Then I go into a food coma and read more or play more games.  Maybe there is an errand or two.  Maybe a phone call or two.  Before I know it, it’s time for my daily check in with Mom and then time to make dinner. 

Every year, as we move into the latter half of December, media outlets start looking back over the past twelve months to remind us of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  What always strikes me are the lists of famous people who have passed over the year.  That list used to be populated by people with whom I mostly had a passing awareness.  Now those lists include a number of my contemporaries, or those not much older but who have been fixtures in my life.

To emphasize this feeling of mortality, I found out I lost a friend earlier this week.  Not a close friend, just someone in whose orbit I circulated for a few years and someone I respected immensely.  I ruined that friendship through a hurtful selfish act.  I owned up to it; apologized; did not make excuses nor throw anyone else under the bus.  She graciously heard me out.  I determined the best way I could respect her was by exiting her orbit.  Most definitely my loss.  The indiscretions of youth have a cost.  I have worked to learn from that experience by, first, trying not to make stupid selfish decisions.  Since no human is capable of avoiding that completely, I then work to own my actions.  There is a reason personal accountability is a hot button for me.  Since I have embraced the pain and embarrassment of owning my actions and words, I expect the same from others.  Unfortunately, taking ownership does not grant you forgiveness.  That’s up to the other party.  But part of living mindfully is doing the right thing because it’s the right thing—not to get a certain outcome.

I am not breaking new philosophical ground with these thoughts.  We all know we need to slow down and live with more intention.  This time of year, we get lots of reminders of that, which is something I appreciate.  Simultaneously looking forward and backward has the paradoxical effect of helping me live in the present.  Life can change in an instant, as I also was reminded this week.  A relative on Trish’s side had a bad accident at work.  He is badly hurt and we are praying for his recovery.  As of this writing, we still do not know the full extent of his injuries, nor his long term prognosis.  I am doing what I do:  cooking for his family.  One instant, one phone call and your life changes.  We don’t think about that all the time because we’d be paralyzed with anxiety if we did.  It’s a good idea to think about it every now and then, though.  It reminds us to live mindfully; to treat people with kindness; to own your issues; to forgive others theirs.  I didn’t know any of this in those long ago yesterdays.  I just lived each day as it came.  Now, as Beth says, I know each day is a privilege.  I don’t want to forget that.