At 10am, it’s sunny and 72 degrees with a slight breeze. I’m sitting on the back deck taking in one of my few remaining weekends here. If the weather cooperates, I might smoke a pork shoulder tomorrow – a final toast to summer and suburban living in a college town. I’ll make enough food that my parents can have some when they come up and stay for the next two weeks. In between adding coals to the grill, I can load the storage container and figure out what I’ll need for my trip.
I’m trying to line up dates for when I leave and who I see before then. I have my friends here, I have family and friends back in the Philly area, and I have my daughter in Pittsburgh. Scheduling visits is difficult because people are busy… and I’m doing this the way I do almost everything in life: I assume the flexible position and make the accommodations. For the most part, I don’t mind doing that. To me, it makes a lot of sense. I’ll be the one without the job and the more flexible schedule. But I also realize that a lot of other people would set a hard deadline and do their own thing. They might say, “this is what I’m doing, this is when I’m leaving, either make time or don’t.” Sometimes, that approach works and motivates other people to make time and space, and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, everybody misses out. Being a pleasant human being seems to include bending with grace and focusing on what matters – then working towards making those things happen. I have time. These people matter. I’m happy to make time to see them. It’s important for me to see them.
I initially went out to the back deck to read, but my mind continues to behave like a four-year-old excited to show off his toy collection, and how he can do a half-headstand, and how high he can jump, and his favorite Pokemon card, and the drawing he made last week, and the way his cat meows when he calls her, and the scrape on his knee that really hurt but doesn’t hurt so much now, and his fastest toy truck, and how high he can count, and, and, and… Instead of reading, I’ve gone for a run, texted to make plans, wandered around the house, looked up sleeping bags and camp stoves and whether or not a small propane cylinder counts as a hazmat going through tunnels, and where I can donate books, and how to hook up a roof duffel if I need one, and, and, and…
This is the hurry up and wait phase. This is when I’m ready to go and explore and see things and meet people, but can’t go quite yet. This is the half hour before I need to leave to be somewhere on time and don’t want to start anything new, except instead of a half hour, it’s two or three weeks.
At 1pm it’s still sunny and warm with a slight breeze and I’m trying to put the rest of my day into some sort of order.