How to Do Life

In this post, I will explain how to do “Life”. Life is hard, sometimes. And sometimes, it is easy. It has curve-balls, straight-aways, holidays, and bird-calls. It is up and down, left and right, this and that, you and me. So in order to explain it, I must rely on some given facts: 1) Life is short. 2) Life is full. 3) Life in this post will be defined as human.

So come with me, and read my words, and decide if you agree.

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Birth

You were born. You will be born. You are born. And since then, you’ve grown up in a fashion of YOU. What you did when you were born, you did for you. Call it “basic survival”. Call it “sin nature”. Call it whatever makes you feel comfortable. Because if that is how you are still living, you should NOT feel comfortable. Although the very word “comfort” has its own list, perhaps. More on that later. Well, now you’ve been born, no thanks to your mom and dad, and hopefully being kept alive- still no thanks to mom and dad- until you are able to sustain your own life (meaning mom and dad will continue to keep you alive until you are between the ages of 18 and 45). If you have lost mom and/or dad, please substitute with “foster care” or your relevant situation.

Childhood

You are now growing up very quickly. Every day, you learn something new. Every other time you open your mouth, a question is asked. You outgrow your clothes, your toys, and your parent’s unconditional love for you. What you learn at home is carried with you for the rest of your life, and yet you have no idea. Choices are made to pursue what is usually deemed “right”, or what is mostly considered “wrong”. Instilled from the beginning are phrases, understandings, moral and physical standards, goals, and religions. However, Facts are what the main focus is on, and so memory must serve to impart, at will, the square root of 16, the pronouns of a sentence, the location of Germany, the number of battles fought during the Civil War, who wrote “The Old Man and the Sea”, and what happens when an acid base reacts with a bicarbonate.

Young Adulthood

My my, what a trip that was. Looking back over your life (all 25 years of it), one seems to have grown by leaps and bounds. What’s foggy and unclear will reveal itself presently…but until then, you’re gonna have FUN. All those facts and figures you learned and labored over for so long turned out to be merely preparation for the rest of life, which, incidentally, became infinitely harder the second you walked out the door. College is/was difficult, but now the end of learning is in sight, and you’re living life on the edge, and you got/are getting married and you started travelling the world. There’s nothing that can stop you. Jobs are of no consequence. Loans and life insurance mean nothing. Responsibility is only dealt with when necessary. Plan for the future, live in the present: That’s your motto, and you’re sticking by it. Maybe you could start settling down in a while…

Adulthood

Well, would you look at that! There was something sturdy to cling to after all. Houses come and go, and friends do the same, but a family…well, unless you’re in the fifty percent that got a divorce. I mean, it happens, right? Something you messed up before doesn’t have to be carried over now. Anyway, you’ve got your three kids and your minivan and your nine-to-five and your dog Bouncer and one of those cool little revolving corner cabinets in your kitchen. Sometimes work is hard, and sometimes you come home and throw the football out back with your sons. Wife makes dinner and reads to the kids, and you put your feet up, pet the dog, and watch the game.

Or maybe your kids have grown up and left the house. Maybe all who’s left is little Susie, who isn’t very little anymore, and she’s threatening to run off with Dennis unless you promise to invite him to dinner this weekend. Your husband can’t stop muttering about how Susie should go ahead and start paying her own bills sometime, and you tell him to shush because he’s just grumpy that he couldn’t get the boat he’d been talking about. “Maybe next year”, and you know it won’t be next year because his AARP card arrived in the mail ten years ago and yours was right after and that retirement check is still nowhere in sight. Struggling wasn’t ever part of the plan. Surviving was always taken for granted. Never questioning the ability to live well, to live gratified. And now, you’re just living, and barely that.

Seniority

You couldn’t have fathomed, not in your darkest nightmares, how hard it would be to get old. Every other week, it’s your arm, or your eyes, or your butt that needs checking, that needs examination, that needs to be poked and scanned and photographed and sent away for testing. It was fun at first, after the kids all left you both alone for so long, and you could get around to visiting the people you missed, and seeing the rest of the world, and slow dance at the weddings. Being Grandma and Grandpa and telling stories and showing off photos and learning new technology and not understanding what anybody is saying. But it was short-lived, and now, everything is going wrong. What’s that? No, wrong. Wrong. W-r-o…never mind.

Death

And now it’s time to leave this world. You’ve known it was coming for a while. You felt it, felt Death, looming behind the staircase every time you looked up it. Felt him breathing down your neck when you entered your car, or the bus. You even shook his hand once or twice as your wife had a run-in with him, felt the same thing, and then left for good. Death took her away, and all you could do was ask him, nice and politely, not to hurt her too much. So here you are again-only Death has come for you- and you ask him once more. Your two sons are here, outside, talking in low voices. Susie is on her way, but it will take some time to get here, and Dennis is a slow driver. You wish you could see her again, tell her that you still think Dennis is a no-good trucker, but you love her anyway and you’ll say hi to mommy for her. Then you remember she’s not nineteen anymore, and the boys are grown men, and will want to split your property up with everyone equally because they’re good boys and you raised them right. Your family will cry for a few days, and your friends will miss you when they find out, and Frank from bingo will hear and be sorry he hadn’t paid you that five-dollar bet he still owes. Then Death leans forward and takes you by the hand and leads you away from here, to some other place, and all you wished you knew or understood is now revealed, only to vanish along with the rest of your life.

But then, you haven’t been living with the right goals. Your goals seem to have been very selfish. The way you were born continued, and you wound up in the same place you started: Naked, going towards a bright light. You’ve lived as a good person, and you loved your family and saved your money and worked your job and raised your kids and never regretted anything. Until now. You regret not listening to the men who came to your door and shared about a God so big, he could love everyone at the same time. You regret not hearing the Pastor talk about God’s son’s sacrifice, which saved humanity. You regret not having a relationship with this God, because now he sounds like the sort of thing you’d have needed. And when all is said and done, never knowing what you need is a scary realization, and usually one realized far too late.