All The Time In The World

Last week one of my neighbors went on a date, and after the date he came to the local watering hole we call our club lounge to re-cap the evening. While I thought it was lovely that my 70 something neighbor was still actively pursuing love, his responses to my questions were a bit startling. I asked him if he could see himself really with the lady and he replied, "she’s taking too long." I asked “taking too long for what?” He said "she was taking too long to sleep with me." I was taken aback… Not only was he very clear about his intentions, he backed his claim by stating that he only has about 12 years left of life so that means he needed to get in and out. He was dead set on having as much fun as he could in the limited amount of time he had left on earth. There was so much running through my mind after this conversation… I seriously was talking to a 70-year-old bachelor. This man clearly had no intentions on settling down and making anyone a wife. He decided to spend his last days having fun with the ladies of his choice.

In any other situation I probably would have tried to explain the joys of being in a happy, loving relationship. I probably would have tried to get into why he feels having multiple women is “more fun” than having that one woman you can do EVERYTHING with. Surely he wanted to grow old with someone and have a sense of family.

The conversation got me to thinking... After getting home I decided to do a little research. According to National Georaphic the average life expectancy of a man is 76 years, for women it’s a bit older at 81. When I started to think of life that way I started to feel the sense of urgency my neighbor was talking about. I just turned 30 in December and after viewing life in terms of years left, I found myself thinking about all of the goals I had yet to achieve.  How many months could I afford to spend working towards certain goals? At the age of 30, with a life expectancy of 81 years, that means I only have about 51 years of life left and that’s with good behavior. What the hell? Where did the time go?  I only have 10 years to get all my shit together so that I can be a Beverly Hills House Wife. I have to go on Watch What Happens Live and get drunk with Bravo Andy. I only have about 5 years to get married to my man... if he’s lucky *wink.wink*. What about all of these travel destinations I have planned? How am I going to find the time to live in Europe and become this amazing French Chef? I can’t forget the private Sushi lessons with Chef Nobu… I guess I can pencil that one in. The point is... have you ever thought about your life in terms of how many years you have left?

When I put my life into that perspective, figuring I only have 51 years left of good living is not very long at all. The thought of only having 51 years left makes me feel so silly for not enjoying every moment God gave me on earth. Sitting up late at night worrying about things I cannot change seems even more like a waste of time than before. Growing up I thought I had time to do whatever I wanted to do in life. I always thought I had all the time in the world to get where I wanted to be. Although I still do believe things will happen when they're supposed to happen. I also believe in making the best of every moment. Life is a steady build... You want to make sure you're checking off goals and enhancing the lives around you.

That night I sat up in my bed and started to jot down ideas for this blog post. I realized that my ideas of what was to make a happy ending for some is different than what I wanted for myself. My neighbor, with his 12 years left on earth was just doing the best he could to make sense of the time he had left. I discovered that maybe my neighbor had completed all of the goals on his check list and this was the way he planned his life to go. Just maybe he was sharing his story with me because he had "paid his dues"... maybe he knew exactly what he wanted and my ideas about love and marriage were just that...MY ideas.

I don’t know if my neighbors ideas about life are right or not but what I do know is that I thank him for opening my eyes to another possibility. We all have a set amount of time to get things done and impact lives. In doing so, we need to understand that sometimes people don’t want to be advised or counseled… sometimes they just want to be understood. Thank you T.