Inspiration may not be the right word. Perhaps it�s just got me to thinking. There�s an experiment going on over at Clarity�s where she is having people do guest entries based on how people feel when they see how many days old they are�. So it got me to thinking.
I am 13737 days old. That makes me just a bit past 37.5 years. I turned 37.5 on October 4, 2005. That day seemed significant to me, as it was halfway between the scary sandwich of 35 and 40. It is also exactly halfway between 0 and 70. Since 70 is around the average life expectancy, I guess I could say I�m about middle age, though none of us really know when we reach our middle age.
I don�t know whether to be scared or relieved to see the number 13737 as the number of days I have walked the earth. A part of me feels relief, thinking that it�s one less day, one less struggle until I close my eyes forever. There should be a website that calculates how many days I�ve spent on this earth sleeping, or frowning or smiling or enjoying this life. I wonder what the ratio would be of happy to sad days. I wonder if some people are just genetically programmed to be depressed and there�s nothing we can do about it.
You know when you are a child, and you go to the store with your parents� it only takes a second, one moment staring too long at a toy or a pack of gum or something bright and shiny. You look up and your parents are gone. There�s that moment of panic under your sternum, a sudden beat of music in your heart with a drummer on speed, and then as you look around, you spy them a few aisles over. Your heart rate returns to normal as the reunion begins.
When I was 3, my dad and I went to Sears. I have no idea what we were shopping for, the story might have a better feel to it if I could say �we were buying a wrench or a new washing machine or a car battery� but I really don�t know why we were there. I do know that we were in the clothing section. Something must have caught my eye, because I remember looking up and my dad was gone. The series of thoughts that flew through my head as the drummer beat his rhythm in my chest may seem a bit sophisticated for a 3 year old, yet I know I was three as my parents have corroborated this part of the story, and I remember thinking these thoughts. As I�m looking around the store in a panic, I gently remind myself that he�s there somewhere and that I�ve experienced this before and the lost parent was always there. But as I look and look and do not find, I begin to panic. I feel like crying. But I am ashamed.
The tears begin pouring out of my eyes, despite my best attempts to keep them in. But I am afraid of crying in public. I can�t let anyone see me crying.
You know those round racks of clothing? I decided that I should climb inside of one of those, hide from the world, just me and my tears. I sat in the middle of these sweaters, trying to be as quiet as possible, hoping that I would just blend in with the clothes on the rack. An older couple came to my rack of clothing and began looking through the clothes. I willed myself to stop crying. I didn�t want them to hear me, I didn�t want them to see me, please let me just disappear. But of course, they did hear me, they did see me. I remember they were rather surprised to find a crying child alone in the rack of clothing. Just as I would be if I was on their side of this story. It seemed like we magically transported from the clothing rack to the lost and found because I don�t remember walking from one point to the other, but I soon found myself at the lost and found, where my dad was waiting, searching for me in a panic.
I don�t remember the rest of that day, but I will always remember those moments. They probably occurred over only a few minutes, maybe 20 at the most, but for me, it was a lifetime. It may have been 13737 days.
And that is sort of how my life has felt. I feel a little like crying most days. And I�m ashamed to be caught with my tears. So I hide somewhere hoping to be found and yet afraid of it at the same time.
See, when you are three (and I shouldn�t have to add this caveat � but if you are three and you come from a good home), when you get lost, in your heart you know that someone is looking for you. You know that your parents are frantic trying to find you. So you can afford to hide in a rack of clothing, because you believe it will all end okay, with the joyful reunion scene at the end. But when you are 37.5 years old, when you are 13737 days old, sometimes when you hide, no one is trying to find you. And that is the scariest part of all.
