Reaching Milestones - How do you handle them?

[KristinaS]

I guess I have a unique outlook on age. At 34 I was a manager of a department worth 350 million a year and working 14-16 hour days 7 days a week for up to 10 weeks straight. The year was 1989. That year I had a total of 7 days off. Average work day for 365 was 14.7 hours. I was unbreakable, immortal so it seemed. In November of the next year, still working those crazy hours I went into total kidney failure. In less than 48 hours I went from being tough and resilient, to near death and slipped into sever depression. The Doc's would write me off three times in the next 3 years. I had my first transplant in 1991. It had real problems for the first year and I spent almost 7 months in a hospital bed in Cincinnati. At that time the average 50% life expectancy for the recipient of a cadaver kidney was only 10 years. I had 10 years to really live, and the kidney I got was marginal at best. I got over the depression with the help of my savior, my wife Cathy. I learned to look at life as many much older people do. "I go to see the sun come up today, so I got another one". In those next 10 years I was able to see my children finish high school, and the birth of the first of my grandchildren. We were able to take our stocks and investments and keep our home and cars. And keep a reasonably stable home for the kids. At 45 I was still here. At 46 the kidney started to fail and at 50 just days away from another round of dialysis our 27 year old son gave me a good kidney. Now in my fifty's I often feel much older than I am. (15 years of really serious medication can do that to you) Sometimes feel like I'm 35 again. But I can tell you I cherish each and every day the sun comes up and I get anotherone.

This is very inspiring. I'm sorry you've had such a rough time with your health, but glad to read you've had a wonderful family to help get you through it. May you have many good, healthy years to come to make up for the bad.

 

[jstuedle]

This is very inspiring. I'm sorry you've had such a rough time with your health, but glad to read you've had a wonderful family to help get you through it. May you have many good, healthy years to come to make up for the bad.

Thank you, that's very sweet of you. The point I was making, no matter our age, we all should live each day as if it were our last. I don't always get accomplished what I would like every day. As a matter of fact I seldom do, but I try. And I try to enjoy every day to it's fullest. No time for depression, or feeling sorry for myself, just get up, enjoy life and have fun.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

we all should live each day as if it were our last.

I prefer the opposite view.
We should all live each day as if it is our first*.
Then instead of going around saying goodbye you have the pleasure of seeing things for the first time and discovering things anew. Works for me.




*I have been variously told that this is due to me being an amnesiac/brain damaged/senile. But what I say to that is 'CELERY!'

 

[jstuedle]

But are they not both variations on the same theme? No I don't go around saying goodbye, but I attempt to not put off till tomorrow what I would love to do today. And if this is my last day, if I don't care to do something today, well I won't know if it gets done or not. I live life to enjoy right now, not to impress others or strive to make that last almighty dollar. It's just Cathy, me and father time. I could care less if tomorrow ever gets here.

 

[kundalini]

I prefer the opposite view.
We should all live each day as if it is our first*.
Then instead of going around saying goodbye you have the pleasure of seeing things for the first time and discovering things anew. Works for me.

*I have been variously told that this is due to me being an amnesiac/brain damaged/senile. But what I say to that is 'CELERY!'

"Sweet Mother Mary and Joseph" (That's NOT some religious turn of phrase but an obscure line from a Frank Zappa song). Hertz, I have to say that as of today, you have been as inspiration to me. That slight tweak and observation at a different angle has meaning to me.

Through the years, I had succumbed with the other (standard) phrase, as if off Hallmark greeting cards and was happy enough with the general feeling that "it is what it is". But I have to say that today is a hallmark day for myself and I needed a swift boot to unclutter my mind.

However, until it becomes possible to fully digest this interpretation, I will need to intergrate at a nominal rate. Living each day as your last is hard coded. Something for me to work on. Pondering is a pass time for me. Thanks.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Hertz, I have to say that as of today, you have been as inspiration to me.

I am hurt and deeply offended that I haven't been an inspiration before to-day! I can see I need to work harder...

WHAT AM I SAYING???
Sorry for using that four letter word. I lost my senses for a second.

 

[Tangerini]

When I reached 65 I thought that would be a milestone - the official Pension age for a man in the UK. That didn't worry me, but when my daughter reached 40 that did.
I was the father of a middle aged woman! When she was 16 and I was 40 she certainly considered that I was not only middle aged but OLD!

When I was 16, my father was 52, and I thought him old. Next month he reaches the 65 milestone and I have to say he's one of the youngest people I know.

It is definitely a matter of attitude. I've grown out of my silly teenage mind frame and he's evolved past his silly government worker thoughts. My change has allowed me to appreciate him as a person (and not as one who was put on earth to torture me), and his change has allowed him to be happy.

Though don't tell him I gave his age away, he's blissfully been turning 24 for over 40 years.

 

[(Ghastly) Krueger]

In the year 2020.

That'll be just in time... my son will be in his teens and my wife entering the menopuase

 

[kundalini]

I am hurt and deeply offended that I haven't been an inspiration before to-day! I can see I need to work harder....

You have been ever inching towards the pinnacle, but that little bit of insight got you.............really, really close.

 

[Tangerini]

*Ack! I'm so embarrassed, it's not my dad, but my mom who reaches that milestone this year...(it was my dad's to claim last year) Obviously neither math nor memory are good in my brain.

 

[hawkeye]

I guess I have a unique outlook on age. At 34 I was a manager of a department worth 350 million a year and working 14-16 hour days 7 days a week for up to 10 weeks straight. The year was 1989. That year I had a total of 7 days off. Average work day for 365 was 14.7 hours. I was unbreakable, immortal so it seemed. In November of the next year, still working those crazy hours I went into total kidney failure. In less than 48 hours I went from being tough and resilient, to near death and slipped into sever depression. The Doc's would write me off three times in the next 3 years. I had my first transplant in 1991. It had real problems for the first year and I spent almost 7 months in a hospital bed in Cincinnati. At that time the average 50% life expectancy for the recipient of a cadaver kidney was only 10 years. I had 10 years to really live, and the kidney I got was marginal at best. I got over the depression with the help of my savior, my wife Cathy. I learned to look at life as many much older people do. "I go to see the sun come up today, so I got another one". In those next 10 years I was able to see my children finish high school, and the birth of the first of my grandchildren. We were able to take our stocks and investments and keep our home and cars. And keep a reasonably stable home for the kids. At 45 I was still here. At 46 the kidney started to fail and at 50 just days away from another round of dialysis our 27 year old son gave me a good kidney. Now in my fifty's I often feel much older than I am. (15 years of really serious medication can do that to you) Sometimes feel like I'm 35 again. But I can tell you I cherish each and every day the sun comes up and I get anotherone.

Wow. What an example to set for others. Very admirable journey

 

[nossie]

Well my friends are gone
and my hair is gray
I ache in the places that I used to play
and I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent everyday in the tower of song.

I said to hank williams: how lonely does it get?
Hank williams hasnt answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the tower of song

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
Im very sorry, baby, doesnt look like me at all
Im standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they dont let a woman kill you
Not in the tower of song

Now you can say that Ive grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And theres a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the tower of song

Now I bid you farewell, I dont know when Ill be back
There moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But youll be hearing from me baby, long after Im gone
Ill be speaking to you sweetly
From a window in the tower of song

Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And Im crazy for love but Im not coming on
Im just paying my rent every day
Oh in the tower of song

-Leonard Cohen

 

[Hertz van Rental]

You have been ever inching towards the pinnacle, but that little bit of insight got you.............really, really close.

You sure know how to tease a boy (and I never do anything by just an inch, thank you)

 

[kundalini]

...hmmm....

by the centimeter, then?

 

[Antarctican]