Many moons ago, my brother posted this photo:
And so it does.
I work at a hospital, on the orthopedic floor, which, as one would expect, gives me the frequent opportunity to work with the elderly.
(Let me pause for a second and comment on how I hate that word, elderly. It's a word that we use to respectfully categorize people who are old in age, but what we really mean, in very plain language, is that these people are very very very old. But when you work with enough old people, you find that someone in their 90s may have the same vitality and youthfulness as a person 20 or 50 years their less; mostly having to do with the state of their health. But, more on this later.)
Prior to working at the hospital, I was working as a Baker for three years. Those three years weren't just years of baking bread and making butters; they were three years of being committed to shaping culture through the architecture of food in place, while also cultivating community. That was the heart of the work then. But I left. Because, as with most restaurant jobs, on the other side of meaningfulness, intention, and romanticism, there was also the nightly party.
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with parties. But if I'm honest, I was growing tired of beer and late nights that felt derivative of the actual intention (of my intention). I felt extremely polarized; I would have very meaningful conversations with coworkers about the process of food and then life, and in the same night, have a very fleeting and hedonistic soiree, complete with bass dropping music and a hangover in the morning. And again, there's nothing wrong with this. This is a good picture of life. Standing outside of it, there's a time for both of these things. They often happen in light of each other.
But I couldn't keep up because it made me feel selfish most of the time. So I left. And I set my hands to a different kind of work.
Now, I take care of old people. I work the night shift. I see pain, and the execrable mess that comes along with being old, of which, I mean the way an old person loses control of certain bodily functions. It's not rainbows, but literal shit. A lot of it. I also see recovery, yes. But, I also see death. And, or, the shadows of it. I see how near and tangible it feels though it isn't yet.
And the thing about old people is that they're old enough to know that they're at the end of their life, but young enough to keep wanting to live (at least those who are still in their right minds, and those who haven't had to withstand much pain or suffering). They know they are at the end of their life and the anxiety is real. Not for everyone. But for a lot of them. One night, I had a patient who would not allow me to leave her room, and if I did, she begged me to come right back. She said she didn't like being alone. She was an anxious ball of a human. She gave me the sense that death, to her, was all the loneliness.
What happens after death is the question that confounds the wisest of men. It's not an easy thought, but it's one experience we will all go through, and yet no one has been able to explain it (though, some would say Jesus, He did). But on a very human and personal level.. it is an experience that is so very concrete, yet so very incomprehensible, because it's not so tactile to us. Where do we go? Is there even a going?
Those questions, whether I like it or not, won't be answered until... it happens. Working with old people was feeling all their anxiety and all their unknowing. The hospital has a way of giving people the space to say “last words” kind of sentiments. I met a man who was in his 60s, and after an emergency amputation of his leg, while laying in his hospital bed, he told me that life just flies by. He said that once you turn 30, life just flies by and whatever you want in life, ya better go get it now, because it's your's if you want it. He said not to wait. I met a woman who, in pain, told me to stay young. I asked her, "How do I stay young?" Her answer was to smile and laugh often, that is how we stay young. I talked to a man who was dying, and in our last conversation, I could tell from the tone of his voice, and in the look of his eyes, that all of him was sad and hurting. It broke my heart.
Life comes to an end. And it's short for everybody. Some, even shorter, but it's short nonetheless. This is the fucking truth. But it's truth provokes me to hold onto gratitude and to practice presence. I've been thinking about my perspective of this life, and how to live it even in such a fractured world. And when I begin to zoom out of my own narrative, and look at how short this life is for everyone, I realize that time is relative. Here's the science of it all: According to quantum physics, the reality is that we all carry our own clock, and it ticks at a rate that is hugely dependent on those features of motion and gravity (Brian Greene). So time isn't as linear as past, present, and future, as much as we think it is. Every moment is an infinity of itself. It is always bending, going forwards and backwards, looping around, and away, twisting, and turning along the spectrum all the time.
The bending and the relativity, it's a seed of hope. Yes, it's a tiny seed, of which my mind can hardly wrap around, but it's what I need. Because if I ground myself into that idea, it makes every moment so much more important. What imprint into this moment of time can I let reverberate forever? It lets me choose both wisely, and a little bit more freely. There's an urgency and an ease. Let us live forever. The sobering reality of the shortness of life, and the enlivening actuality of this time, right now, puts light on the fact that―oh my God, I have two healthy lungs, a beautiful heart, a working brain, and two fucking feet that allow me to move and live and breathe. Wow... Wow.
This is the prayer I want to live by. I think much of my living and doing has been a result of my fear of life passing by. I grew up on annoying cliches like "Live with no regrets." But I think this is the fear that traps us. It is the fear that it will be gone, and then we are guilted by it somehow. But frankly, I'm tired of these sayings that are rooted in fear instead of boldness. Let us live our forever. Let us have our infinity. Let us live extravagantly and passionately in this moment, that we are here so vividly and clearly in the most non-dual way. Nothing less. So nothing and everything is wasted on this side of eternity.
