Adjusting to Reality
I’m back at home now (actually on my second day already) and I am slowly getting back into the swing of life on the hilltop. We were gone for almost three weeks, but that was shorter than the five weeks we were away in Ithaca and on our cross-country trip this summer, but this must have been more of a real vacation to me because I feel like I need to come back down to earth where I’m not sure that feeling was with me in July. I can certainly attribute some of that to the time zone issues of being in a world nine hours ahead of this. Some clearly needs to be attributed to being in a foreign land (even though Spain and Portugal are not really so very foreign in an exotic sense and compared to other places I have spent time). But for those and whatever other reasons exist, I have a light fog around my head that is only now starting to lift. I suspect that going to teach my class tonight and then doing that all over again tomorrow night will wipe out all the foggiest bits and put me squarely back on track.
I was up early today, but in all fairness, I went to bed earlier than normal and watched no TV from bed, which is a sure sign that I’m still somewhere else. While we were away, we watched very little TV even though every hotel room had a functioning cable TV set-up with at least a few channels in English. It was less about not having my most familiar shows on call, but rather that my head was into a different routine and TV seemed a bad use of the free time I did have, preferring to use that time for emails and news surfing as well as daily ride story-writing. So it wasn’t that I didn’t keep certain elements of my routine, its just that the overall structure of my days was very different, focused mostly on suiting up and riding and all the pre and post prep that entails, as well as the occasional tourist sightseeing, which I had only a modicum of, which was fortunate since I have only a modest tolerance for that. I spent the early hours today preparing a revised version of my lecture for tonight’s class, jumping on several articles I have read over the past day in the New Yorker and WAPO to spice up the discussion with some very current references. I also spent some time clearing away some administrative chores which included sending in a passport renewal request to the U.S. Department of State since my current passport expires in early September of next year and that is too tight for most travel since apparently, we turn into pumpkins if we have less than six months left to run on our documents.
I put my iPhone calendar to month-view and was surprised how fast I flipped to February, when we are supposed to head off to Egypt, 5 months and 28 days ahead of my passport expiry. I have to remember not to do that sort of calendar surfing because it is only a spin of the free-wheeling dial away from me being ninety years old or worse. Spin the dial again and I am at my son Thomas’ wedding next Labor Day. I am not sure what exactly I will be looking forward to once that is done, but I know one thing for sure. We all need things to look forward to and Kim and I are quite adamant about layering in things that give us that forward perspective and positive outlook. None of that says that I am unhappy with my day-to-day existence, but just that daily reality is hard for me to take without something more uplifting on the horizon.
Last night I headed off to teach the first of my two weekly evening classes. Before the ride I spoke with our friend Ann, who will be guest lecturing in the second evening class this week. She did this last year, so it was really just to polish up the subject matter and touch base telling her all was in synch for the Zoom lecture. We also spoke about the trip to Spain/Portugal which she and her husband Chris were supposed to come on, but then cancelled due to some logistical issues of their moving apartment in Manhattan (never an easy act) and a gig Chris had chosen to accept to be the emergency fill-in art director for some new film. Chris is at that point in his life where he is trying to retire, but still getting enticed by the “we really need you” line from people who want to hire him for the next gig. I relate to his angst over taking on such assignments (he now says he sort of wishes he hadn’t taken this one…but that may just be a throw-away comment for the crowd). I have a harder time relating to the issue of getting sidetracked by an apartment move, not because it isn’t problematic, but because I am so over wanting to move house anymore and scratch my head about doing it at this age, especially for a couple of blocks and a few extra square feet. But that’s what makes horse races. However, I do note that Ann and Chris have both said that they are definitely going on the ride we plan next year to Morocco. It seems that they too now feel the need to have something to look forward to and perhaps wish for more rather than less leisure time in their lives.
Then, as I got in my Tesla for my ride down to the University, an easy ride most of the way, I called my friend Steven, who reads my blog and who had emailed me asking me to call him when I got back home. I had to remind him that what he reads in my blog is a few days out of date with my life and that I was already home for two days when he wrote me that. We then went on to discuss what’s new (I didn’t have much to say…since he reads my blog most days and knows exactly what’s new with me). He is in the final few months of orchestrating a move to a new house he is building in Palm Springs. He is selling their Florida house and keeping their NYC apartment. Having just paid my California state taxes yesterday, I reminded him that he would soon be straddling two high-tax states and that he and his liberal leanings needed to prepare for that reality. We laughed about it since I know he has come to feel like I do about the low-tax state of Florida and he is willing to pay the price to get the hell out of that crazy state. What surprised me was that Steven, not unlike me, is also seemingly overdone on New York City and is anxious to start a new life in California. I definitely relate to that and since Steven is a few years younger than me, I forgive him the house moving hassle, since it involves a cross-country move rather than a two block move. His need to get out of NYC was somewhat surprising to me, but he is realizing what we all must at some point and that is that we are supposed to leave our children alone enough to live their own lives, which is really what they want and need.
So there you have it. Steven says he is constantly surprised how many of my thoughts expressed through these stories are like his own thoughts. That is high praise indeed for a writer like me since I always want to think my thoughts resonate with others even though I know how ambitious that objective can be. We must all adjust to our own reality as we get older and my rules of the road are quite simple. Live your own life (here I mean the life that Kim and I want, not just what I want). Leave your kids to create their own lives. Plan things to look forward to and make those stretch objectives. You can always cut back if you feel overwhelmed and want to just rest at home, but if you do that prematurely, you will be staring out the window wondering why you did it. Adjusting to reality is a full time job, so get on with it.