Time and tide

What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?

As I climbed the stairs one sunny morning I did a double take. In the bright light, the carpeting was so threadbare that the backing material was showing through. Twenty-five years of family, friends and pets had taken its toll.

This is nuts.

For at least three years, Sue and I had discussed replacing the carpet with hardwood. But trips to big box stores looking for handrails, spindles, treads, and risers that fit…not to mention finding a compatible stain color…was frustrating. 

After wandering around for an hour measuring stuff, listening to announcements on the store intercom, looking at stain color charts…each trip ended in defeat. It was a tactical retreat to the garage for a cold one, a little guitar time, and I’ll think about it later.

The day I saw the backing material convicted me that I had procrastinated long enough. Impulsively, I tore up the carpeting, thus preventing any more retreats. I was now committed.

From then, it only took me about a week. I found laminated slide-on treads at Lumber Liquidators. Instead of replacing the handrail, spindles and newels, I simply primed and painted them to match the treads. I cut beadboard risers on my table saw and with my nail gun and some putty, it all came together.

My garage beer and guitar strumming afterwards was much more satisfying with all that behind me. I just needed a push to get me past my procrastination.

But not everything has an unlimited timeline like the stair project. Life happens fast in unanticipated ways.

I’ve kept in touch with one of my oldest friends from Florida ever since commencement on a Spring day decades ago. We’ve always talked about someday taking a road trip on Route 66 all the way from Chicago to Santa Monica. 

Someday. 

About a year ago, his wife called me. “Have you noticed anything strange about Rick?” she asked.

“I dunno. Not really. Like what?”

“He seems really anxious, paranoid. He gets stuck on something and won’t leave it alone.”

I thought for a second. “Well, he’s been saying something about your cable,” I said.

“Yes! Like that!” she said. “He’s got this idea in his head that somehow we’re getting Netflix illegally and he’ll be arrested.”

A faint warning bell went off. As we hung up, I told her I’d monitor things and we could keep in touch.

As the months went by, he had concerns about his diet. He pretty much stopped eating and lost 30 lbs. He fretted about medical symptoms…could this or that be the start of some horrible disease. What ifs tormented him in the wee hours as the world slumbered.

After several months, MRIs pinpointed a diagnosis: early-onset dementia. 

He’s since lost his ability to drive. He quietly sits, fretting about things that have no basis in reality. He rarely smiles, laughs, or argues.

So no damn the torpedos carpet rip up possible here. No Route 66 road trip. No more two-hour calls with ancient inside jokes. No more funny birthday cards with his cartoon additions. 

Just an aching hollow place in my heart for my friend; another ship sailing out of sight.

Mark Twain famously exhorted the carpe diem philosophy:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do,” he said. “So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I don’t know if the Good Lord has twenty more years in my plan. But I think I need to start applying the carpet rip-up technique to a lot of someday things.

Because someday may only be a mirage on a shimmering desert highway.

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