Quarantimes

Once upon a time I was talking to an old acquaintance, someone with whom I hadn't spoken in decades.  We found each other again on Facebook, like you do.  At some point he marveled about how fast time seemed to have passed since last we talked.  I said something to him that I'd said to him before.  He even said, "You used to always say that."  It was this: I said, "Life is unbearably long."

My mother - with whom I talk weekly - will often tell me, "I don't know how it happened.  I don't know where the time went.  It all went by so fast."

To which I reply, "Really?  Can you not remember those difficult moments in your life when time seemed to come to a standstill?  When you were bored, or worried, or trapped in a shitty job or I don't know a church service?"

Those are things - those times when time seemed to come to a standstill - that dominate my memories.  I remember being so lonesome in my room I thought I might go insane.  I remember being bafflingly awake in tedious college classes that didn't somehow make me sleepy.  I remember waiting in lines, waiting for buses, waiting for food when very hungry, waiting for a band to fucking get onstage because I was tired of standing up.  I remember still-painful moments of loneliness when I had no friend to reach out to, no one to call, nowhere to go, nothing to watch or listen to or see.  The truth is, they seem like the vast majority of time I've lived on this planet.

When I'm dying, I'll not stand bewildered at where the time went.  I'll be able to envision it like a graph in a textbook, a map of geologic time.

It's true, as I've gotten older, it's become harder for me to get stuff done - tonight I timed myself cutting potatoes to make french fries & was astonished it took three times as long as I thought it would.  & never mind how long it's taking me to do my dumb prerecorded radio shows!  I suspect I have more responsibilities than when I was thirty-five years younger - certainly seventeen-year-old Gary might be bored on a Friday night with nothing on television, no friends to hang out with, & nothing new to read.  I'm hardly ever bored at all in my old age.  But I can't say time moves faster.  & I can't say that life feels any less long.

Maybe this perspective has helped me psychologically during this pandemic.  I do miss many things - I often think about the last time I went out to dinner, the last time I saw a show, the last time I saw a movie - but mostly I miss going to my radio stations.  I've had to listen to myself on the radio so often in the past two months I completely understand why very few people listen to my show.  But I don't feel the way many in the pandemic seem to feel.

My wife, who's much more social than I am, has begun to wonder if she should visit friends.  From a safe distance, of course.  She gets much of her social needs from work, from interacting with co-workers & students.  That's all gone for now.  It's taking its toll.  Me?  I am catching up on my comic book reading.

When I should be doing radio shows.  Damn it!

Anyway, yeah, I still feel life is unbearably long.  & who isn't feeling that right now?