This week, I attended three evening lectures on three conservative nights at one of the colleges here. The venue is fairly unique, hosting dinners and talks nearly every evening, Monday through Thursdays, as well as luncheons followed by talks on some days, during most of the school year. I just go for the talks, not the meals, and, in recent years, I’ve been extra picky about which talks I attend. It just happened that this week there were three talks in a row that piqued my interest.
I enjoyed getting out to the talks – it was fun and reminded me of the old days – but it was sort of exhausting. It got me thinking indeed about “the old days” – before my spinal surgery in 2017, which I think of more and more as my other life. At that time, I attended pretty much all of the evening talks, as well as some of the noontime ones (I also got home on my own in my wheelchair instead of having my attendant pick me up in my van).
That was on top of all the other things I was doing. I think I do a lot now – people always tell me I do – but, before my surgery, I was doing more, way, way more. When I think about all the things I was doing, I’m amazed – people at that time marveled at how much I did – and I sometimes think that that’s why I got the illness or whatever I had that lead to my needing the emergency spinal surgery.
I haven’t said this out loud, but I really wonder if it’s true: It feels like it was my body saying, “Okay, John, that’s it – time maybe not to die but to definitely calm down,” I did feel extra stressed in the months leading up to the illness or whatever it was, and some friends have agreed that it was like I aged very quickly and got old really fast when I had my surgery. I suddenly had much less energy and was able to do way, way less.
But I’m still going out and doing lots of things, sometimes quite a lot of things I tend to stick around town – I haven’t gone to L.A in over a year – but there are weekends when I find myself attending three, even four performance, in addition to going to meeting on Sunday mornings and maybe a movie. Or there was this week when I attended lectures on three conservative evenings. I like it, but it’s kind of exhausting. To be honest, I look forward to the weeks, like when the colleges are on break, when there are fewer or no events.
I don’t like it that I feel this way, and it bugs me. It’s like I have an addiction, a bad case of FOMO – fear of missing out. It’s not a bad, injurious addiction, like drinking or gambling, but I do wonder: How will I know when I can’t do these things or so many of them? If I have to choose some or a few, how will I know which to choose? And how will I feel about it, deal with it?
I hope it doesn’t take another catastrophic event for me to find out. Or don’t I? Would that make it easier?