BUSY LIFE IN THE FAST LANE, PASSING LANE, OR . . .

A busy life means making a difference to someone, to something, to somewhere.

Take your pick. Pick more than one.

What you can’t pick is anyone else’s priorities for their busy life.

You can try, but why?

We get hints everyday on what to do, what to do better, and what to do better than anyone else.

Baby boomers have logged more busy life than any other generation.

Hurry to sixteen for a driver’s license.

Get old enough to buy cigarettes and beer.

Hurry to grow up fast to join the rag-tag mob of musical festival fans.

Put them all together and you’re old enough for a DUI.

Don’t do that.

 

Evidence Of A Busy Life?

Based on the evidence, I’m slowing down, winding down, until I zero out as nature intends.

After listening to a one-sided talk that sent me to the emergency room because I stifled myself a little too much, followed by a night in the local ICU during covid, I heard all about slowing down.

I heard about from an ‘old bird’ nurse of forty years old.

After I told her I was a former Army medic she let it out: the long hours, the hostile patients, the visitors.

Maybe she wanted to perk me up so I’d avoid getting depressed for being such a little bitch I couldn’t take a heart breaking talk without getting heart broken.

No, not an emotional heart broken, a broken heart kind of heart broken. 

The good news is everything got sorted out before blood and guts, knives and drugs, got involved.

 

After one of the best weekends imaginable, including a farewell, family, and the embrace of loved ones, I remember thinking: “Now I can die happy.”

It’s a common saying heard from healthy people and it’s funny. I’ve said it before and it felt funny. Not so much this time.

It was a funny twinge in my chest, which is no surprise. Last week I put up 225 lbs on the bench press. That’ll twinge a few things if you’re not ready.

Except I didn’t lift Friday or Saturday.

A slight twinge Saturday night, more twinge Sunday morning, then the finale on Monday morning. Time to book a room at the heartbreak hotel.

 

Turns out I could have skipped the whole medical part and had the same outcome.

Or I could have been the dumb fuck former Army medic who skips the whole medical part and drops dead in the most inconvenient of places.

The consistent message from those days was listen to my body, work with my body, that my body carries all of the stress of a lifetime. So far.

I heard it from the nurse in ICU who called herself an ‘old bird’ so we sickies would tell her, “No, you’re not.”

I heard it from the good doctor who said PTSD and gave me a book to read.

And I heard it in cardiac rehab during the workouts.

The guy next to me apparently didn’t hear the ‘take it easy’ message while he jammed on the stationary bike.

He wore an ‘I’m pissed as hell and I’m not taking it anymore’ look on his face every day, an angry man in rehab after having a heart attack while getting choked out during mixed marital arts practice.

The guy choking him also gave him CPR.

On my last day of rehab the staff carefully helped him off the bike when the cardiogram machine we were all hooked to showed him having his next heart attack.

“Don’t let the sound of your own bicycle wheels drive you crazy.”

 

Good Dog + Good Health = Walking

Make time in your busy life for a nice walk around the block, around the park.

My plan is taking a walk around the Willamette River starting on the Steel Bridge over to the Eastside river walk to the Hawthorne Bridge and back.

That’s the plan.

That WAS the plan before I got jocked up with a new kettle bell workout followed by a 10K step ping pong marathon.

A day later the plan was to take two consecutive steps with a kink in my back, which I failed to do.

I spent Sunday one stepping around, left foot forward, right foot to left, then another left footed step.

That’s how it works when one leg has no push and you play hurt like a good teammate.

Six days later, with stretching and a massage gun and a roller bar on the floor, I’m back to the river walk plan.

Will the dog be coming along? Yes.

Who else? We’ll see.

 

 

PS:

What really makes me feel accomplished? Understanding people based on their experience.

I knew a guy who was an early Moonie.

Before becoming a Moonie he seemed like everyone else; afterwards he was always recruiting.

Who do you know who is always on, always pulling or pushing for one thing?

Chances are they weren’t always that way.

 

PSS:

What makes me feel accomplished is settling down enough to understand the messages life sends.

Was I destined to work in wood and fish because of where I was raised?

Only if I wanted the best paying summer jobs.

Was I destined to travel around the country?

After wrestling trips to Colorado, Oklahoma, and Iowa, why not check out the rest?

Was I destined for history museum work?

It makes Oregon come to life.

Destined to be a caregiver?

Unless you’re just starting, you’ve been a caregiver all along.

Did you make your parents’ life a living hell? If you didn’t, then you cared.

Do your siblings shun you? They do because they care.

Do you try and treat your partner and kids right? Then you care.

It’s not that complicated. Just do your part.

Once upon a time I thought my part was playing the butt-hurt, ignored, neglected, mope staring at a parking lot from a third floor apartment window, until I noticed that part had already been taken by people a lot better at it than I’d ever be.

 

Girl: You seem sad.

Me: So do you.

Girl: We could be sad together.

Me:

 

I stared out that same window in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Portland along with the rest of the like-minded.

Then I changed my mind.

I had help.

I got married, stayed married, and continue on the love train with wife, kids, and grandkids.

Will I change my mind? Ever? Not with this busy group.

They seem like ‘you can run but you can’t hide’ sort of people.

I wouldn’t get far if I made a run for it with a bucket of chicken.

Maybe half a bucket away, half back?