Life at 3 miles an Hour

I can’t believe its over already. How many are feeling the same thing. It’s kind of like a holiday hangover. There’s all of the flurry of activity, the laughter, the good feelings of good company….maybe… and then the morning after. Tired, worn, slightly disoriented, trying desperately to dredge up memories and feelings from the night before and not let them swirl into the darkness of my mind, is the order of this morning. Even my caffeinated work zone is quieter and more subdued. It arrived, sort of like the polar express bearing down on the day. Then, in a wave of paper, boxes, ribbons and bows, it left again. Gone but not forgotten, I hope. It was said of Ebeneezer Scrooge, that if any man had the ability to keep Christmas all year long, it was him. I wonder how he accomplished it. Was it because he was so far gone that when change came, it swept over him like a wave that continued to carry him up the beach long after the rest has receded? I guess that maybe I’m not that

Coming towards the end of a year, my first instinct is to look back. One thought rings loud as Christmas bells rattling between my ears. Here it is….my philosophy for the year. We’re not as strong as we think we are. I’ve been reminded of that repeatedly this past year. Two relief trips to New Orleans, friends dealing with cancer, a wife with serious back issues, teenage lapses in judgment, a season of flooding, and now the latest and greatest of storms will tend to do that to a person with any type of balanced reality. To be honest, its not been the event itself as much as the attitude that surrounded it this past year that has helped me appreciate our truly humbling existence. It seems almost as though I can’t pick up a paper or turn on a news broadcast without witnessing us failing miserably in our attempt to overcome our human limitations. Only half way into December and it seems as if more people have been reported lost in the snow than during the days of the Oregon trail.

I’ve been ruined. It’s been a long steady road I guess. I’m thinking that its taken nearly seven years, but I’m finally there I think. Allow me to explain. It has taken nearly seven years, but I think that I’ve finally become comfortable in an urban existence. I can no longer imagine life without mass transit. I can’t conceive of a world without coffee on every corner….and I don’t mean Flo’s 10 cent ceramic mug coffee. I mean real status coffee. The kind of coffee that I spend a ridiculous amount on, while kids go starving in other parts of the world. I don’t know about any other kind anymore. I don’t know what it would be like to not have coffee on every block. I’m looking out of the window by my seat at Tully’s directly across to Starbucks on the opposite corner. My wife and I walk everywhere. Within a 5minute walk we can eat at restaurants from all over the world, including real authentic New York style pizza. People know us in the community and to some degree we matt

This morning, for the first time in a long time, I’m feeling somewhat closer to the age that’s listed on my legal identifying documents. I wonder if this is how others that were born in 1963 feel, and if so, how long have they felt this way. Not only am I feeling it physically, I’m experiencing it emotionally as I sit here and answer an 80’s trivia question tossed out by a barista half my age. Sometimes my mind creates this illusion that I “grew up” during that era. I only remember being young then. The reality is that I was married and having children then. I myself am a child of the previous decade. But then again I’ve always been about 10 years off. One look in my closet testifies to that reality. I can’t complain too much though about age and aging. The last time that I can remember feeling old was about 8 years ago. It was August 1998. It was 95 humid degrees outside and I was lying on a field with a severely broken arm and shoulder after being tackled by a three hund