Mood:  special

My Grandfather turned 80 years old yesterday.  I asked him how it felt, and he said, "fine."  

Fine?  That's it?

I sat on the other end of the line waiting for some Buddha-like wisdom that would help me deal with the universe in my mind - the hard-knocks life I feel like I have and the chattering lady in my frontal lobe that doesn't think I'll make it, the one that can only see my cup of success as half-empty... the one that sits on a ship and looks ashore and is positive that we are the ones being left behind.  But my Papa was so disinterested in giving me a pep talk or of talking about how old he was.  When I insisted that he elaborate (certainly he had something prophetic to say!) he said that he actually felt the same way he felt when he was thirty, except that his joints sometimes get stiff.  He said that the stiffness goes away, so, all in all, it's not that bad.  He told me that when I get to be his age, I'd probably feel like I was 20 with modern technology, medicine and the fact that I eat so well and all.  He said he forgets things - that he's "run out of room in his brain", which, according to him is also not so bad.  I can totally see that, I mean,  who needs to remember where the remote is, or what day it is, or the name of the grocer.  Even more convenient is forgetting past hurts, frustrations, defeats, guilt and shame.  He was making 80 sound like the place that I want to be, a stiff utopia where I get to say exactly what I'm thinking without consequence and eat what I want to eat without any concern for body-image.  A place where no one expected anything more from me, and I expected no more of myself.  How can I be 80 right now?

I've been told by friends who've made their transition (from 29 to 30, that is) that the most remarkable thing happens: you stop caring about what other people think or say or do.  You prioritize better.  And at the ripe age of 28, I'm trying to skip ahead a couple of years to that part of life... when I don't care what people think of me... when I measure my achievements by how they make me feel... when I can stop comparing myself to others and worrying if I can keep up with their successes... when I can stop keepin a tit for tat score card of accolades and trophies and certificates and degrees and newspaper clippings, and industry nods, and productivity, 'cause right now, I'm in like the 30th percentile, and don't they keep people who are in the 30th percentile back a year.... do I have to repeat year 28 if I don't get my numbers up?  I know, it's absurd and masochistic, but these are the workings of my mind!  It's true.  

I've made it a point (actually a 2008 goal) to enjoy whatever I'm doing as if it were the only thing... as if there weren't an incessant longing in my heart to be, or do, or have something better!  Interesting:  the words 'better' and 'than' go together.  Something can only be better in relation to something else.  I always wanna be better... better than... better than.... everybody?  Better than myself?  How do you quiet these thoughts?  Mediatation... monk-dom... perhaps... but they'll come back like barnacles to the bottom of a boat.  You scrape and scrape, but if you put that boat back in the ocean, the moment I step back into the world, the barnacles will return.  Guaranteed.  How do you be in the world, but not of it?  How do you garner contentment regardless of circumstance?  So do I have to die before it stops?  Is death the only thing that stops it?

My grandfather started to talk about his final rest and I felt my chest tighten and the backs of my eyes heat up.  Why did he want to talk to me about that?  Perhaps he's made peace, but did he even consider that I hadn't - that in my mind he should live forever?  I asked him to stop being so fatalistic, and he said that he wanted to say just one thing to me about it... this is what he said (and I paraphrase)

"I used to be afraid of dying because I didn't know how I was going to eat. (huge Papa laugh)  But when I realized that God would feed me, I was alright."

Buddha speaks.