Deafening madness

I'll evenutally go deaf in my right ear. The doctor hasn't said so. I just sense it.

See, when I go out for long bike rides, I typically only wear my right-side airpod. It lets me listen to my tunes and keep an ear on the traffic. And I listen loud. If I time it just right, I'll be totally deaf as I power cross the final Finish Line. My plan is to leave it all on the bike.

Or on the trail. Or behind the camera. Or wherever. Whenever.

No fumes in the tank. No dollars in the bank.*

The Whenever part is beyond my control, of course, so my quote is simply:

Live your life, and let death worry about itself.

This came to me in my 40's after losing several friends to cancer at the same age and stage of life. I realized if you live long enough, you'll eventually say goodbye to folks before either of you are ready.

Relationships get cut short.

Plans are upended.

Stories end in the middle.

The cosmic cruelty of untimely departures and other misfortunes compels me to suck as much marrow out of life as possible.

Eat, drink, and be merry, Tom?

You bet your sweet ass, You.

IMHO a lot of us, including me on my lesser days, take life way too seriously. Do we really think life is taking any of us seriously?? As a result, I've spent a fair amount of the last decade looking around and leaning in to life's unexplored places. The meandering side roads have become more interesting than the linear interstates. Sure, there's a risk of "wasted time," but I'll take that bet. It's a travel-related gamble that hit big for me about 25 years ago.

Early in our relationship, Jan and I made a well-intentioned but grievous error in judgment. With a work conference that overlapped our honeymoon, we thought it would be clever to let her employer subsidize part of our trip by paying for a nice hotel stay in Vancouver. She'd attend a few sessions to justify the work expense, and we'd score a couple of fancy room nights.

What could possibly go wrong?

It's a bit of a crooked line to this next part, but let's just say the hotel was a few twinkles shy of five stars. In fact, it was so bad that we bailed - from it and the conference. It was late in the day and well before Al Gore's internet, so we feverishly flipped through the phonebook for a bed & breakfast. Things bottomed out around midnight when we found our way to the last room on earth. Out past the edge of town, we pulled into a gravel driveway and raised the highbeams for a better view of things. To discover a random guy peeing on a random shrub in the front yard. This? On our honeymoon?? With no other options, we slept in a stranger's guest room, awoke to our choice of breakfast cereals, and got the hell out of there.

It was a busted play, and as they say on the stage, we were officially "off-book." So, we ditched the itinerary, grabbed a local map, and headed for out-of-the-way places (the good ones).

That no-plan plan culminated in a memory-maker on our last night. We stumbled onto a quaint little place in the middle of nowhere, high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. As the sky handed the sun to the sea, we toasted our good fortune, taking it all in from the backyard hot tub. A solitary moment to celebrate a new life together, a million miles away from everything and everyone.

Spoiler alert: Middle-aged man musing ahead...

The thing is, I don't think you can really, truly live until you know you're gonna die. I'm now far less sure about what happens when the lights go out, and I don't need my own terminal diagnosis to prompt me into a life-beginning series of adventures. From rollercoasters to pristine mountain views to tender moments of vulnertability with others to hard introspection about myself. I don't just want to lean into these things. I want to lean into them hard.

Prone to extremes, I've learned - with the help of others - to channel my exuberant tendencies into controlled passion. There is, after all, a fine line between unhealthy obsessions and enthusiastic pursuits.

As Abby and I were on the way up to Angel's Landing in Zion National Park (WAY up), we overheard one nervous day hiker ask another, "How are you not completely freaked out right now?!" As others became paralyzed on the ascent, I looked over the edge and smiled. Not because I was feeling superior to the weaker-kneed tourists behind me but because I felt completely free in that moment - even where a slip and a fall meant severe injuries or, quite possibly, death.

Was that crazy?

Madness, even?

To feel so good in a place where others were feeling so bad?

Maybe it was a chemical high - the surge of adrenaline and norepinephrine?

Or maybe I was more focused on holding onto a precious memory with my daughter. A willingness to be fully present in a moment that would be gone by dusk.

While writing this, a text came in about a friend's sister and a horrible car crash. An 8-hour surgery would follow as the doctors tried to put her back together. Recovery would be hell. Time will tell.

You can say it’s “your turn “or that “God has a plan for it all,“ but the fact remains about timing: We just never know, do we? As for me, I'll keep leaning in, looking around, and taking the side roads.

Oh, and listening loud.

Until I can't.

*Just kidding, daughters. There'll be a little left over but only just enough to keep you hungry for the same in your own lives.