Iris Gaines: You know, I believe we have two lives.
Roy Hobbs: How... what do you mean?
Iris Gaines: The life we learn with and the life we live with after that.”
-The Natural
Sitting again in an empty office before we open, my favorite time of the day here. First call was supposed to arrive promptly at eight, but the client pushed to 8:30. I am not unhappy about this.
Last night was another moment of discernment, this time sitting at the bar at the St. Andrews Bay Yacht Club, about to wade into a small bucket of she crab soup with a wedge salad (gotta watch that girlish figure, after all), when an old professional colleague sidled up with his kids to say hello.
Well, not so old actually. Maybe forty, very ambitious and always with a clear vector for his professional life. His dad and I were both old Eagle drivers, and since he passed I see more of the son, who's maybe looking for that lost figure in his life. I rarely see or hear from my own, one's gone silent for over three years now, so I'm happy to play the role, maybe even a little grateful.
Tonight our conversation turned again to my hope of slowing down a little while I still have time to enjoy life a little, thinking of my parents, incontinent and immobile, spending the balance of their lives being moved between maybe three rooms, counting the loo. That day is coming.
My acquaintance has always seemed to me to live an examined life, a rarity in his age group from what I've observed. Listening to my nightly pule about too many billable hours for this season of life, he paused and passed along something that's rolled around in my head ever since.
"You've probably heard this before, but my dad used to say there are three variables in our life--time, money, and health--and each ebbs and flows as we age. When we're young we have plenty of time and plenty of health, but no money. Then we get to middle age and we have money and still have health, but no time because we're busy with careers and family. Then at the end we have money and time, but no health. The trick is to recognize that moment toward the end of the second season, when we can have all three for a little while if we make that happen."
He's solidly in the second season--little girl sitting next to him at the bar asking for the candy they tuck under the counter, managing his own firm that seems to be growing by the day. It'll be a while before all three come together for him.
But I'm in a different place, I reckon. I've handed most of the management decisions to the young partners in the firm, and am happy just to practice law and refer work around to the great folks in our three offices. I still exercise, but the chronic stuff is gradually beginning to accumulate, and there's only so much one can do to slow the march of time once this rickety old frame goes out of warranty. P and I are still pretty much newlyweds, and I feel a certain resentment at commitments that keep us apart even as I'm grateful for the work and the money.
In sum, we're at that place, and it's not going to last long, not at all.
The goal here is more days like this,
and less time spent in places like this.
Will we get there while we still have all three variables? Two out of three might as well be one, or zero.
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