The Little Things

 

As we get older, our world gets smaller. I stole that basic premise from another columnist but these thoughts are my own.  It’s true. Our priorities change, our aspirations shrink; we just want to live in peace. With a few good friends. And a safe place to live.

Don’t get me wrong—I still want to change the world. But maybe the part of the world that I want to change isn’t as vast as it once was. Addressing a huge audience is somehow less important than addressing the person sitting in front of me now. Maybe it’s the realization that I can impact that one person more effectively than a room full of people.

Since my college days, my personal mantra has been drawn from Robert Browning’s The Grammarian’s Funeral. One line says (sort of) “the low man aims for a hundred, his mark is soon hit. This high man aims for a million, and misses by a unit.”

Aim high and miss by just a bit and you’ve still accomplished a lot. Aim low and hit it and suddenly you’re satisfied. Even when you were capable of so much more. I’ve aimed high and it’s taken me to amazing places. Yet, my world shrinks.

As they say in sports and in love, I’ve “out-punted my coverage” in several arenas. I was never supposed to go to college but here I sit with multiple college degrees. My mother-in-law didn’t think my marriage would last but here we sit, 48+ years later.

No English teacher I ever had (except for Dr. Barrett at UT) thought I had even a hint of talent but this column puts me in the neighborhood of 2 million words published. My artistic side was limited to sketches of classroom monitors done  out of boredom but in recent years, I’ve produced several hundred paintings that some people seem to like (betcha didn’t know about that one!).

I still want to travel more, but my bucket list trip is now down to just Machu Picchu. Maybe Cinque Terre. Now that I’m in my 8^th decade, little things have become more important to me.

Like my routines. Every weekday, my routine is the same. I eat the same things for breakfast. I eat the same things for lunch (Olivia’s Old South from Chicken Salad Chick).  Same workout routine. For 25+ years, Steve Bright and I led an intrepid group of bicycle riders around Blount County every Saturday morning. The roads have gotten too crazy for that now.

Date night is the same. Chesepeake’s or Big Ed’s. Movies are mostly at home now. Even my mowing is the same. Front yard, side yard, big field, upper pasture. In that order. Squares one time, diagonals the next.

A simple ride in my truck with a grandson to play tennis is treasured. Same thing for that time with my 11 year old—he asks the most profound questions when it’s just the two of us.

One-on-one with my college girl is really special. She sat down beside me at her brother’s soccer game recently and we just talked about things. College. Life. What made her happy. It wasn’t much—just a few minutes, really, but it was more precious than gold.

I love the sameness of putting up our Christmas tree by myself, listening to the same Christmas music while doing so (Pentatonix). I love putting the colored lights on the Blue Spruce outside my bedroom door. I’ve been doing that for years.

Embrace the little things. Love the tiny episodes. Sure, we remember the big events—major accomplishments and huge milestones. We can remember when and where on those. But life is made up of precious, often brief bits of time when we can truly live in the moment. It’s taken me a lifetime to figure that one out.