They say when you die your life flashes in front of
you. I am not sure how one goes about verifying such a fact and still be
in a position to write about the results, but I do know one thing. I
didn’t have to die to relieve my life. It hasn’t be a flash, but
over the past few months my life has been passing before be in a rather
unhurried, relaxed march.
Beginning in mid-summer I've been reliving little snippets
of my life 10 or so at a time as I carry out the monthly ritual we
all have of paying bills. Check by check the dollars went out and year
by year I relived my life. Weird as it sounds, I noticed the
numbers on the checks I wrote matched the years that I had lived. This was strange and
really eerie and I began to wonder about me because I know there is not
another person alive who would have noticed such a thing.
The series of checks began with 1953. It was to the
electric company. 1954 was to the phone company. Talk about a reality
check early on. I learned at such a young age there are some things we
can’t deny – the electric company and Ma Bell are going to follow me
in my life wherever I go. The reality check stayed with me the 1955 went
to a credit card company. But, don’t think that there wasn’t a
vision of what is to be. 1956 went to the cell phone company. Who would
have imagined that in 1956, still almost ten years prior to those famous
words, “beam me up
Scotty.”
Through the end of summer and on into the fall my
life replayed itself in this quiet, leisurely pace each month as the
check numbers grew through the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s. Through
all this I began to see that just as most of the checks are for
important but really such mundane
and non-descript things such as rent, mortgage, insurance, car loans,
and cable bills. so too my life has been mostly fill with such humdrum events. Oh,
there are great and wonderful memories and thoughts of baseball and football, pets and
picnics, family and friends, things and events that are a part of all
our lives. But, the truth is, it has all been so ‘normal’ –
school, homework, the bus, supper, TV, summers at he playground and
beach. (Full disclosure here: Some of those checks to American Express
or other credit card companies were for some really extraordinary
adventures on assignment.)
Sometimes the check was so ordinary but the year
was not. Like 1974 is an ordinary check to the cell phone company. But,
it is also the year I met my best friend of all time. 1976 may have only
been a check for rent, but it also was the year I graduated college
(first and only in the family to do so).
Every so often, though, there is a check written
for something phenomenal. So too it has been with certain years my life.
Check 1982 was for a new computer. In year 1982 I left the security of the
local area I grew up in and ventured off far from home. 1996 for
investments, and for a dream three-week photography expedition to New
Zealand.
There are many amazing and unexpected moments like
that thrown in amongst the everyday, mundane events that define our
lives. Those events have been marching past me each month as I
remembered these past moments with every stamp placed on each envelope
stuffed with a check. With pensive reflection I relived these
times with amusement, sadness,
anger, embarrassment, and bewilderment the wonder of it all.
And, as I look back through the numbers and
remember the days and times there is a fuzziness to some. So many,
however, are clearer and come more into focus today. I guess that is
something that can only happen after time has done its misdeeds to me.
Being born in the ‘tranquil’ 50s, growing up in the ‘idealistic’
60s, and coming of age in the ‘non-descript' 70’s, I guess gave me
some of what I needed to get on with life in the 80s, 90s, and beyond.
It is funny to note how much those days and times
have captured and enslaved me. It is hard to escape where I’ve been
and what I become as a result. It is apparent though, that I am not so
much a victim of those days and times, but a proud survivor of them.
My next check will be 1998. The 1990s rushed past
and the soon the check numbers will be greater that the years I have
lived. That is a scary thought. But, I don’t plan to rush my real age
numbers along to
catch up with the check numbers. I think I will keep this leisurely pace
I’ve been on. It has suited me well so far and I don’t think it is
wise to mess around and change what is working. I do hope though, I live
long enough to match the number on the last check I write.
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