Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tick

So I've been trying out this new thing where I work to meet all of my obligations, do what I say I'll do when I say I'll do it, and do things even when I don't wa-a-a-nt to.
I think it's called... wait, wait, give me a minute. I think it's called maturity.
Don't worry, I haven't gone completely on the rails. I still love cartoons, blowing bubbles, and jokes heavy on the crass. But turning 50 has sharpened my hearing. I can hear the clock of mortality ticking so much more clearly than before, and it is chanting, do it now, do it now, do it NOW.
Example: Last week was the week the city did its annual spring brush and branch pickup. For me, this effort amounts to thinking about picking up the fallen branches in my back yard, reasoning that I still have plenty of time to take care of it, then being amazed that the pickup day has come and gone and my yard is still filled with branchery.
Not this year.
When I came home from work one night last week I saw several of my neighbors diligently clipping hedges, gathering branches, and piling it all in tidy curbside mounds. Oh, I thought. The city must be doing the pickup tomorrow. Oh, well. My yard doesn't look so bad. Too late now.
I was greeted at the door by my Indy dog. It didn't take a dog whisperer to read the expression on his face: "Walk tonight? Walk tonight, Mom? Pleeeeaaase, walk tonight!"
"I'll take you in a little while, Indy,"  I said. 
Shortly thereafter my son and my brother-in-law arrived to help me go pick up a used bed frame I'd bought for my older daughter, who's moved back home for awhile.
"Mom, I need a new cell phone," my son announced. "Mine's dying."
When I hesitated, Dan added, "I'll pay you back when I get paid." 
We picked up the bed (my sole physical contribution was to open and close doors) and got it back to my house. I thanked Dan and my brother-in-law, said goodbye to each, ignored the sinkful of dirty dishes and flopped on the sofa to watch TV. When Indy danced over to me I rubbed his fluffy gray head and said, "Sorry, bud, Mom's too tired to go tonight."
Then I heard it: tick, tick, tick. Now. Now. Now.
I jumped up and headed for the kitchen. 
As I washed the dishes I thought about the economics of parenting. My daughter needed a bed. I bought one without thinking twice. My son needed a phone. I dragged my feet about it.
I was bombarded with memories of times when my two daughters' needs were met and my son got short shrift. Dan was a quiet kid, never asking for much and always appreciative of what he did get. And while my girls were never demanding and also always appreciative, they were more verbal. And because they were girls, I understood their needs more easily. Or so I told myself. 
The reality was, Dan was the back seat kid. Not because I loved him any less, but because it was easy to not see what he needed - especially if you were preoccupied, and not seeing made life easier.
Tick. Tick. Tick. I finished the dishes, ran to the store, bought a box of microwave popcorn and a bottle of Coke, two of Dan's favorites, and left them at his doorstep. I called him and told him my revelation. I told him I'd buy him that new phone. I apologized for all the times he felt "less than." He didn't say much, but he was, as always, appreciative. 
Then I gathered armful after armful of dead, dried branches from my back yard and hauled them to the curb.
By then it was almost dark. I ducked back into the house, rounded up Indy, and we bounced through the neighborhood in the twilight.
The words mortality clock have a ring of doomsday to them, don't they? But that isn't how I think of this demanding internal timepiece. For me it's a hand at my back pushing me to accomplish what I can while I still can. I don't plan on dying tomorrow, but I can't guarantee I won't, either. All I have is today, this moment, right now. That's always true of everyone, but for a lifelong procrastinating look-the-other-wayer, turning 50 has made it more than true: it's made it real. And how grateful I am for that tick, tick, tick.