Here........we..............GO!!!!!!
Amazing what temperatures above 50 degrees and a little sunshine will do to your mental state. Amazing and crazy all at the same time. Let's break that down shall we:
Amazing - in the sense that anytime during the winter weather I didn't want to do anything, I used the same excuse. "It's too cold." An excuse usually agreed upon by another party. "Yeah, man. Screw that. It's too cold." Body just goes into shut down mode. A sort of mobile hibernation. Things only get, or got, done because they simply had to. Now that it's starting to warm up a bit, the body and mind are more like, "Okay, I finished that. What's next? I have to be doing something! Can't waste a beautiful day like this!" Amazing the 180 that occurs. Which in turn leads me to the crazy......
Crazy - In hindsight it is absolutely crazy that so much was put off for 1/4 of the year because I didn't like the weather. Do I do that every year? Let's just say that I have and just count the time that I've been married. That would put me at roughly a year and a half of my marriage that I've not gotten anything done because 'it's too cold'. My poor wife. I'm sorry dear. Or let's even go back further to when I started chores. Say age 12. If I went on shut down during the winter starting at that age, that means I've managed to get out of doing things by using the 'cold' excuse for 78 months, or almost 7 years, so far. What's even crazier about it being warmer, is it makes you think that you will get 127 things on your to do list completed in a day and a half. "I need to put up a fence, build a swingset, go running, take the kids to the park, build patio furniture, go camping, fishing, paint some spots around the outside of the house, plant a garden, run some electric out to the shed, mow the lawn, play fetch with the dog, and eat dinner by 8 o'clock." And the crazy thing is, I KNOW I can make that happen.
I love this weather. I love watching life spring up out of myself, my wife, others around us, and every other living thing that's taken a nap. It's exciting isn't it? The winter months are not the best, but it really makes you appreciate the life that it brings out when it's over.
So, thanks for doing your job winter. Now let's get out and do something!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Don't Hear that too Often....
The other day I was out working in a neighborhood I frequent on just about a daily basis. I was in someone's front yard locating when I saw an elderly lady approach me.
At first we struck up some small talk. She wanted to know when her yard was going to be dug on, how long was the work going to be going on in the 'hood, will her yard be made pretty again after it's been dug up, etc.
I told her that they would probably be working on it either the following day or day after. She informed me that she didn't know if she'd be around then. She told me she was 86 years old (give or take a couple of years) and that she would be dying soon. I didn't pry into that, but she did mention she had a doctor's appointment that day. Then she looked at me and said, "but ya know, I'm ready to die."
"Oh, so you're ready for that?" (never really had to respond to that statement before)
"Oh yes. I'm ready to die. I've lived a good life, and I've got a beautiful house. I think I'm ready to go."
She also told me she had lost her husband some time back. A widow. She retired in 1980. Said that she had lived a full life........
How often do you hear someone say to you those words, "I'm ready to die"? It didn't dawn on me until I had heard it that I quite possibly have never had someone utter those words to me in a conversation. We all (anytime I use 'we', this is including myself) spend so much time making sure we make it to the next day, next hour, next minute on a daily basis. Safety is a big part of society, and some practice it more than others, in the hopes that we make a conscious effort to continue to live. We save money, or try to, so that we either have money to buy things for ourselves to upgrade our status or comfort, or to put back for the kiddos, with the notion that we 'know that tomorrow WILL be here so how do I make it better?' We plan, we plan, we plan. But do we plan to die?
This surely sounds like a ramble, and that's kinda what that statement did to my brain. Threw me off a tad. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with planning and wanting to better yourself, because the opposite of that would be a sluggard that waits for things to be handed to him/her. I pray that the majority of us do not fall victim to the latter, but I am saying this........what treasures are we planning to attain? Are our plans for a better life filled with 'meisms'?
I say all of this because the realization of this life ending stared me in the face that day, and also the realization that I don't think about death much, if at all. The one thing I wish I would have asked here was what she did in her life for her to be at a point where she was okay with the thought of dying. I'd be willing to bet that if she's fortunate enough to know when that time is, that she won't be sitting in her living room thinking, "man, I'm glad I bought that flatscreen HDTV," or in the garage going, "if I wouldn't have had that BMW, I don't think I would have fulfilled what I wanted in this life," or.......well, you get the point. She surely won't be taking that with her when she goes.
What a statement, huh? "I'm ready to die." Right now, I'm too busy thinking about my "immortality". Puts things into perspective when you hear something like that. My hope and prayer is that when it gets to that point in my life, I can look back and say, "yeah. I feel good about this. Let's go home."
Peace,
t
At first we struck up some small talk. She wanted to know when her yard was going to be dug on, how long was the work going to be going on in the 'hood, will her yard be made pretty again after it's been dug up, etc.
I told her that they would probably be working on it either the following day or day after. She informed me that she didn't know if she'd be around then. She told me she was 86 years old (give or take a couple of years) and that she would be dying soon. I didn't pry into that, but she did mention she had a doctor's appointment that day. Then she looked at me and said, "but ya know, I'm ready to die."
"Oh, so you're ready for that?" (never really had to respond to that statement before)
"Oh yes. I'm ready to die. I've lived a good life, and I've got a beautiful house. I think I'm ready to go."
She also told me she had lost her husband some time back. A widow. She retired in 1980. Said that she had lived a full life........
How often do you hear someone say to you those words, "I'm ready to die"? It didn't dawn on me until I had heard it that I quite possibly have never had someone utter those words to me in a conversation. We all (anytime I use 'we', this is including myself) spend so much time making sure we make it to the next day, next hour, next minute on a daily basis. Safety is a big part of society, and some practice it more than others, in the hopes that we make a conscious effort to continue to live. We save money, or try to, so that we either have money to buy things for ourselves to upgrade our status or comfort, or to put back for the kiddos, with the notion that we 'know that tomorrow WILL be here so how do I make it better?' We plan, we plan, we plan. But do we plan to die?
This surely sounds like a ramble, and that's kinda what that statement did to my brain. Threw me off a tad. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with planning and wanting to better yourself, because the opposite of that would be a sluggard that waits for things to be handed to him/her. I pray that the majority of us do not fall victim to the latter, but I am saying this........what treasures are we planning to attain? Are our plans for a better life filled with 'meisms'?
I say all of this because the realization of this life ending stared me in the face that day, and also the realization that I don't think about death much, if at all. The one thing I wish I would have asked here was what she did in her life for her to be at a point where she was okay with the thought of dying. I'd be willing to bet that if she's fortunate enough to know when that time is, that she won't be sitting in her living room thinking, "man, I'm glad I bought that flatscreen HDTV," or in the garage going, "if I wouldn't have had that BMW, I don't think I would have fulfilled what I wanted in this life," or.......well, you get the point. She surely won't be taking that with her when she goes.
What a statement, huh? "I'm ready to die." Right now, I'm too busy thinking about my "immortality". Puts things into perspective when you hear something like that. My hope and prayer is that when it gets to that point in my life, I can look back and say, "yeah. I feel good about this. Let's go home."
Peace,
t
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