Thursday, October 05, 2006

The Brevity Of It All

When I was younger, I only wanted to be older. When I experienced unpleasant times, I only wanted to get to the good times. And when I lived in the inbetween times, when life wasn't great but life wasn't bad either, I envisioned how life could be better.

Now, oddly, a feeling of sadness has overtaken me today as I understand that even those less than stellar times will never come again. I will never be able to really know what it is like to live in those moments, and even the shadowing memories of those times are fleeting into the darkness of past. My life is great, to put aside notions of my demise or inner turmoil. Working student life is better than I imagined it could be, I don't miss working two jobs, I enjoy sharing my "home" with 94 other young men. I'm just struck by the vapor of life. The brevity of it all.

My friend Charlie called me yesterday to ask if he could spend the night in my apartment tomorrow. Charlie and I went to school together for two years and served as RAs during my junior year. Later than year I stood as a groomsman in his wedding on top of Dayton Mountain, looking out over the valley on a warm May afternoon. Now he lives in Michigan with his wife and three children. The nature of his business tomorrow is an interview for a youth pastorship at a local church, the possibilities which have me greatly excited.

Charlie is a good friend. I know this because I've only spent considerable time with him twice since he graduated in the spring of 2000, yet whenever we talk the conversation picks up where it left off. I once was in the habit of only calling Charlie whenever I was out of state or out of the country. Kansas. Mexico. Minnesota. Canada. It gave him a nice thrill each time he heard my voice, not knowing where I was on each occasion ("Where are ya now, Matty?"), and it was a good excuse for me to talk to a distant friend.

While talking to him yesterday, I recalled a moment in the years past when Charlie was supposed to stop in for a visit for the night while on a trip. "Did that visit ever happen?" I asked myself. A hazy recollection of Charlie standing in my old red brick duplex flashed through my mind before dispersing in the understanding that the moment never actually happened. Something else had come up, necessitating a quick return trip home for Charlie, and I suppose my anticipation of seeing an old friend during a lonely time had actually pieced together a moment that never existed.

These thoughts drew me back to the two-year period of living life on my own, very much like a hermit or a monk, that now seems so very long ago, though it only ended two years ago. At times there was extreme loneliness and occasionally periods of depression, but there were also very good times of solitude and quiet. I have little of either now, not that that's a bad thing, but a small part of me mourns the fact that I will never experience the coldness of walking through a front door into an empty home, filling an entire week's worth of evenings by myself, checking out VHS from the library because I don't have cable and seeing how cold it can get in the apartment at night without heat in an effort to conserve energy.

Life truly is precious, and I am ashamed of my own selfishness and lack of vision. Lord, teach me to number my days.