I'll be 4 cubed soon. Yes: 4 times 4 times 4 years of age.
It's not important, just a curious little detail. I like numbers. I play little games with the numbers on license plates while I drive, like finding two that add up to a thousand. And I look for patterns in dates and phone numbers and addresses. I've lived at addresses 111, 22, and 333, and if I'm ever house or apartment hunting in the future and come across a 44 or a 444, I'll probably want to take it, for just that reason, which is no reason at all.
There's no significance to turning 64, or that 64 is 4 cubed, except that it's mildly interesting, to me anyway. I was once 1 cubed, then, just a short while later I managed 2 cubed, and less than twenty years after that, I was 3 cubed. But that was 37 years ago, and it's not likely at all that I'll reach 5 cubed. And that's not because I'm slowing down. That's just the way numbers work.
Actually, I am slowing down, but time isn't. I think that's the cruelest joke of getting older - that time just keeps moving faster, when it should move slower. That would be kinder. It's when we're young that we can't wait for things to happen, for next week and next year to get here. And so of course it drags. Now, I mostly want to just hold on to what I have, to enjoy it. So time moves fast enough for me to start experiencing the end of something almost from the moment it arrives.
Apparently, Einstein once explained Relativity by referring to the difference between the hour you spend waiting for your lover, to the hour you spend with your lover before you part. That's a good one. Who can't understand that.
But I'm exaggerating. There's lots I still look forward to. New things as well as familiar things. And there is the positive side of the time warp: waiting isn't nearly so hard anymore. And I'll add that there's also the kindest joke about getting older, which is that, in the most essential ways - the ways of spirit - you don't really get older, anyway. Isn't it odd - and wonderful - that being in my sixties doesn't feel anything as bad, as boring, as I-might-as-well-be-dead as I thought it would?
So I have big plans for sixty-four. I intend some big changes. And you know, it's as exciting and as scary contemplating this change as when I left home for boarding school when I was fifteen and realized that my life would never be the same again. I'm exaggerating again. Not quite that excited, or that scared. But I'm reminded of something - something pointed out to me by my track coach, Ralph Lovshin, a few decades ago. He helped me understand that I underperformed during track meets because I treated excitement and fear as invasive parasites that I had to overcome. Instead, he told me, treat them as allies that arise from within, preparing me for whatever challenge I'm facing. And you know, it worked. I became a much better shot putter and discus thrower after digesting that lesson.
Change. Fear. Fleeting Time. Come on with it. I'm ready for you!
It's not important, just a curious little detail. I like numbers. I play little games with the numbers on license plates while I drive, like finding two that add up to a thousand. And I look for patterns in dates and phone numbers and addresses. I've lived at addresses 111, 22, and 333, and if I'm ever house or apartment hunting in the future and come across a 44 or a 444, I'll probably want to take it, for just that reason, which is no reason at all.
There's no significance to turning 64, or that 64 is 4 cubed, except that it's mildly interesting, to me anyway. I was once 1 cubed, then, just a short while later I managed 2 cubed, and less than twenty years after that, I was 3 cubed. But that was 37 years ago, and it's not likely at all that I'll reach 5 cubed. And that's not because I'm slowing down. That's just the way numbers work.
Actually, I am slowing down, but time isn't. I think that's the cruelest joke of getting older - that time just keeps moving faster, when it should move slower. That would be kinder. It's when we're young that we can't wait for things to happen, for next week and next year to get here. And so of course it drags. Now, I mostly want to just hold on to what I have, to enjoy it. So time moves fast enough for me to start experiencing the end of something almost from the moment it arrives.
Apparently, Einstein once explained Relativity by referring to the difference between the hour you spend waiting for your lover, to the hour you spend with your lover before you part. That's a good one. Who can't understand that.
But I'm exaggerating. There's lots I still look forward to. New things as well as familiar things. And there is the positive side of the time warp: waiting isn't nearly so hard anymore. And I'll add that there's also the kindest joke about getting older, which is that, in the most essential ways - the ways of spirit - you don't really get older, anyway. Isn't it odd - and wonderful - that being in my sixties doesn't feel anything as bad, as boring, as I-might-as-well-be-dead as I thought it would?
So I have big plans for sixty-four. I intend some big changes. And you know, it's as exciting and as scary contemplating this change as when I left home for boarding school when I was fifteen and realized that my life would never be the same again. I'm exaggerating again. Not quite that excited, or that scared. But I'm reminded of something - something pointed out to me by my track coach, Ralph Lovshin, a few decades ago. He helped me understand that I underperformed during track meets because I treated excitement and fear as invasive parasites that I had to overcome. Instead, he told me, treat them as allies that arise from within, preparing me for whatever challenge I'm facing. And you know, it worked. I became a much better shot putter and discus thrower after digesting that lesson.
Change. Fear. Fleeting Time. Come on with it. I'm ready for you!
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