Grieving at 30 months

Oh lordy, 30 months? Really?

It seems a common perception that life continues to accelerate as we get older. We spend years wanting to be older, to be given more space, to be less under someone else's control. To be allowed the responsibility to conduct our lives as we think best. When will I be old enough to stay up after 8pm? When will I be old enough to ride my bike across town? When will I be old enough to see a "grown-up" movie? When will I be old enough to drive a car? When will I be old enough to live on my own? When will I be old enough to get a job, make my own money, have my own place. When will I have the freedom and space to create my own future?

For some the chase never ends. When will I be able to have kids? When will I have my own house, when will I be able to be the boss? When will my kids move out? When will I get to retire? When will I take the vacation I've always dreamed of? When will I have time to relax? When will I have time to travel? When? When? When?

I don't know if there's a common timeframe for people to begin to perceive the quickening of time. My sense is that it begins to happen in the late 20's in the American culture. A time when you've been living outside the fairly common framework of "kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school" - for some college, for others grad school.

By the 30's some are beginning to feel that things aren't going exactly as planned and they might feel pressure to start to move toward those youthful goals. One thing is for certain - boy time sure seems to be passing more quickly. How did I get to be 34? What happened to the idea of starting a family after schooling?

By the 40's some are beginning to reevaluate their dreams. Things haven't all gone to schedule and (whether for technical reasons, or practical reasons) we're beginning to feel the need to reevaluate our dreams to align them with our current view of the world. In this new view there may be less dreaming, or more, depending on how well our sense of hope and happiness has remained intact. Fifty sure is starting to look close. What happened to the last ten years? It seems to have gone by in a flash!

Well, I can't speak to the view after age 45 (well except that soon I'll have the perspective of age 46). All I know is that the people I've met in their 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's send the same message back to me in my 'youthful' forties. To them, time has continued to accelerate. The other message is that physically their bodies are on the decline. Even Fred, the oldest and healthiest person I'd ever met was not immune. He lives in a small town in upstate New York, about forty-five minutes from the closest mall. He celebrated his ninetieth birthday in 2008, and he was still living on his own, driving his own car, shoveling snow of his walk, cutting his own grass. Fred joked about how sometimes he'd be working outdoors and he'd lose his balance and fall over. No bother. He'd take his time getting up and then continue with his chores. He got sore more easily and tired more quickly. Just about every day he visited the old folks home and chatted it up with the people in their 70's and 80's who were in their final years. Everybody in the elderly community knew Fred's age and they knew his standing against the one person in the local community who was known to be older.

Fred's 90 year old perspective was this:
-he didn't feel the need to learn about computers
-most of the people he'd known during his life were now gone
-he felt sometimes like he was just waiting for his time to be up
-if he gets any disease, that's it - he won't want any treatment
-his favorite meal was chicken on biscuits with gravy (how bad can that be for you?)
-he liked to cook pies and give them away to friends
-time has continued to seem to transpire faster and faster throughout his life

What happened to all the time waiting to get older? At some point do we all eventually say "Boy I sure wish things would slow down".

So where was I going with all this?

Oh yeah, grieving at 30 months….

In the near term after Robin died there was a very concrete sense of time. For a year or more, time was measured as After Death (A.D.) As in, it's been six months, it's been nine months, it's been a year. Then I got more and more caught up in life and living, and time began to accelerate. At 30 months there's a very tangible sense of "wondering where the time has gone" and "how did I get here".

Things are skewed only in the sense that I am once again reliving the sensations of the person in their early 20's who has discovered they are "old enough". Like the young adult full of dreams and ideals, my future once again seems pregnant with possibilities.

The Past - Losing relevance

I've been in a new relationship for six months. For some reason the other day it felt like my past was losing its relevance. I'm guessing it is that that we've talked so much about our past experiences in life that now we've become more focused on the present.

The sensation feels very nice!