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While he is reading the new book by E.L. Doctorow, he is struck by the thought it is not really what he is reading that has given him a flash of insight, although Mr. Doctorow does write some very good books. It’s the title — “All the Time in the World” — that seems to capture in six words, his new world is gently called “retirement” by those who seek solace in words. This is exactly what he has: All the time in the world.
At one time or another, the concept of having time to do whatever one pleases is as attractive as the thought of heavenly paradise is to religious people. Of course, we older folks understand time is never an inexhaustible commodity. It takes a while for youth to understand time is always finite when so much of it seems to lie ahead. Youth looks at all of the time ahead of them and thinks if I can only be free of the restraints of having to earn a living and maybe going to family functions, such as Aunt Lucy’s 80th birthday party, there are so many things I could be doing. It is only when they are no longer young they realize a trick has been played on them. Time is not infinite, but can be used up like a box of tissues.
When he was a boy, his father used to tell him how quickly time flew by. His father might as well have been speaking Chinese for all he understood about it. Hell, other than summer vacation, time used to move in slow motion although he didn’t think they had as yet invented the slow-motion camera. When he was in class, sometimes it seemed like an invisible giant was arm wrestling with the minute hand … and the minute hand was losing. Once he spent a year in geometry class before the bell finally rang.
His mother had her own saying, “youth is wasted on the young.” Now what in the hell did that mean? He thinks the idea that people accumulate wisdom with age is highly overrated, but he finally understood what his parents were trying to tell him. But it is not part of human nature for young people to learn the true value of time until it is running out like the sand in one of those plastic hour glasses he used to see in one of those junk shops on the boardwalk.
He has to chuckle, now that he is retired, at how different the experience really is from what he had imagined. If you had asked him when he was 30 how he envisioned retirement, he would have said he and the missus would probably be making the rounds to the Eight Wonders of the World. In between trips they would probably be making love all day. The reality is even if you could afford to travel to the Eight Wonders of the World, you probably wouldn’t because most of those places are on the Defense Department’s warning list for travelers. As far as making love all day, he realizes now what a pipe dream that was, despite those television commercials for drugs that supposedly turn you into a satyr even when you’re only sweeping the backyard.
The truth is, having all the time in the world is just an illusion like most of the illusions people carry their entire lives. Having all that time creates a burden too. Working folks often ask him, “What do you do all day?” Pausing a long while before answering does not do much for his self-worth in their eyes or his. He no longer has the excuse that an employer is taking an eight-hour bite out of his day or that the kids need caring. A dear lady he once worked with used to tell him she dreamed of the day when she could just sit on a rocker on her back porch and sip iced tea all day. Maybe if he had a rocking chair or a back porch and didn’t have to worry about his caffeine intake, it would be a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
What he has found is that he has to adjust to not taking orders from an employer all day just like folks that are released from an institution have to adjust to being free. He still has recurring nightmares. He is trying to meet a deadline that can’t possibly be met. He is surrounded by strangers who don’t know him and wondering why he is wandering around aimlessly in their dream. In the dream, he is back working at the old place and feeling lost because all of his friends have been replaced by strangers. He wanders through the dream like a ghost.
He has gotten used to the fact that he now worries less about the future and only about each passing day. The future is immediate. The harsh fact is his future is actually each day when he wakes up and takes that first deep breath. He has learned not to deal in the future as years, but in the now magical one day at a time. In a lot ways, it can be a good thing. A lot of the disasters they predict off in the distance are not part of his future.
He has also learned that if he wants to hear his music, the radio is no longer his friend. Welcome to the age of the Internet where he can dial up a free music service like Pandora and listen to the magical Bill Evans playing songs like “My Foolish Heart” any time he likes.
Life has a different rhythm. He’s becoming used to it. You can say he has even grown to like it. But he really doesn’t have all the time in the world. SPR
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