i just drew karkat as a maine coon licking his butt seductively

Hard Ways

I think the hardest part of growing older is watching your kids get older too. It’s Halloween weekend, and this year my girls are not so enthusiastic about the whole trick-or-treat experience. They see themselves as too old now - I guess they are - and I think this is tougher on their mother than it is on myself. It represents a big change in our lives. It’s another reminder that they aren’t little anymore.

Passing this milestone means that those days are behind us, at least for awhile - until, God willing, I walk my grandchildren around the neighborhood on Halloween night. I will miss those walks - the dark neighborhood streets swarming with little ghosts, baseball players, Spider-Men, pirates and princesses, and mermaids tripping over sequined tails. Endings give way to beginnings, I guess, but things end nonetheless.

It’s tough to let go, but I think we make it tougher on ourselves than it has to be. We just move too fast in life to savor our experiences. Many of us have lost the ability to slow down and truly live each day. I think it has more to do with our busy lives than anything else. We all overextend ourselves – over-schedule, over-promise, and over-commit until we run up a serious temporal and emotional deficit. It’s just modern life, right or wrong.

I have to remind myself of this failure from time to time. I’m just as guilty as anyone else. Sometimes, like today, I will recall when I successfully adjusted my sensory perception of a particular experience and carried away a truly lasting and fulfilling memory. It’s amazing the gravity these memories hold – they far outweigh some of the memories I think I should retain, but don’t somehow.

For example, I remember one evening when my kids were little. I was tired from work and was going to meet my family out somewhere to eat dinner. Somehow I got the idea in my head that I was going to have dinner with my kids as though I was meeting them for the first time. I would put aside the preconceptions I carried with me about what the dining out experience would be like – you know, trying to get them to eat their dinner, stay in their seats, not talk too loudly, all while struggling trying to have a conversation with my wife. Instead, I tossed all these preconceptions aside. We sat down in a booth somewhere for dinner, and quietly watched my kids interact with each other. I became an observer, not an enforcer, and with a smile on my face, I truly saw them – at least for a while – as who they were. They weren’t my kids just then. They were two little people having dinner with two bigger people, and I will never forget it. Their conversations with each other, the way they ate, their laughter, all were new experiences for me that night, and I savored each one.

Another time this method worked for me was when I was about twenty-five. I was living in Washington state, but would be leaving soon. My heart was heavy with regret and anxiety about many things – some I understood and some I did not, and many my own doing. I had traveled by ferry to Orcas Island, and as I had been doing a fair amount of cycling back then, had planned to ride some of the winding forest roads there. I found myself at the base of Mount Constitution, looking upward. It’s a modest rise by Washington standards, about 2400 feet to the summit along a twisting switchback road, but it is quite steep at times. I had doubts about my ability but I decided to ride up anyway. It was tough going – at times only a first-gear stand-up grind at a pedestrian pace. A few cars passed me on the way. Road etiquette in the west is unlike that in Florida. There is a different level of respect for bikes out there. In that part of the country it is normal to offer words of encouragement when passing a cyclist - here it is normal to be sworn at - I don’t remember in particular if anyone passing did that for me on the climb uphill - I was too self-absorbed to notice.

The altitude, the dry air, and my own mental state took their toll on me about halfway up. I stopped to catch my breath on a sharp corner with an expansive view of the brilliant north-western sky. As I stood straddling my bike I saw bald eagles wheeling and spinning on the rising air high above. When I saw them it brought an involuntary smile to my face and a sudden sense of great happiness. The clear mountain air, the blue sky, the sound of the breeze in the the evergreens - it was all so intoxicating. I let it all go - the regret, the anxiety, and the negativity - I let it all fall away. I watched the eagles fly for a few minutes more, and when my heart-rate dropped back to normal, I snapped my feet into the clips and started up the road again. Smiling still, I was now truly enjoying the simple goal of reaching the top. I was enjoying that particular milestone even as it passed me forever.

When I finally reached my reward at the summit I was winded but still smiling. Visitors who had driven up were taking in the view from atop the stone observation tower. I reverently joined them. My mind was clear and my heart was lighter, and my lingering smile was returned by others. The view was something I tried to etch into my memory because I knew I might never be there again. I can still see it clearly.

The eagles were still spinning above as I returned to my bike and got ready for the rapid descent down the switchback road - my next reward. Leaning hard into corners I guided my rocketing bike from turn to hairpin turn, a line of cars patiently following me down. Brake, lean, turn, straighten up, let it accelerate, brake, lean, turn… I was smiling, going very fast, and hardly pedaling at all.

October 30th, 2010

Yay I've got my first 100 note post! :D