How Do You Slow Down Life?

Another of my occasional late evening musings. No URLs or political links. 

By John Adams

When I was a kid and school was over for the summer, the vast expanse of June, July, and August seemed endless before me. And somehow it mostly WAS endless. Lots of backyard ball games, tree climbing, fort building, summer league baseball that defined my existence, afternoon trips with family and neighbors to a community lake "club" for swimming, doing an easy 10 books for a "vacation reading club" diploma from the local library, bike rides to Barney's Market or Hanover News Agency to get the latest comics, bike racing with neighborhood kids around improvised tracks on vacant lots, endless skinned knees, and Mom blowing a whistle out the back door to wherever the heck I was to call me home for dinner or at dark. Eventually I had to go back to school, but summer seemed like a heck of a long time.

Where did that perception of time go? How did I lose it? So often now, a season or even a year passes by virtually unnoticed. Summer heat transforms into surprise snowflakes and then deep snow and back again within a seeming blink of an eye. What the heck happened?

I am old enough now that this speeding of perceived time has become worrisome. It's not like I have a lot of years ahead of me. I hate scrolling down those "year of birth" pulldowns until I finally reach 1953. I look at old photos with my kids, and they see an entirely different universe that they simply can't fathom.

Maybe we are hard wired for this but I sure don't like it. How do I slow time down again? Any suggestions?

One small thing that helps is my 45 minute commute each way down back country roads past farms and fields and through hamlets to get to work and my 93 year old Mom's home to help care for her. I make sure to look at every tree and field and notice how tall the corn is getting and what the cows are doing, and the number of ducks and geese and even a few swans in the small lake beside a paper mill I pass on the way, and whether the many roadside farm stands seem to have anything to buy (and I try to stop often), all the while listening to the radio and being thankful for all of it. I really look forward to every moment of the drive.

Still, days and weeks slip through my fingers.

I am still engaged with my work and with my community commitments, and I should be grateful for all of it. But what happens when I retire? I spent most of my life working 60-70 hour weeks (crazy 100-120 hour weeks in training programs, one year never seeing the sun outside for about 6 months, when others were going to bars and enjoying themselves in their 20âs - no regrets here, just saying).

When I shifted out of Medicine and into the horse biz at 50, life not only became reasonable but I was also able to spend significant time with my parents in their aging years that I would not trade for anything. I have some some physical limitations as a result of a car accident in 1993, so daily golf or tennis or whatnot are not viable options for me.

Now I worry about my 93 year old Mom with her macular degeneration, bad hearing, declining memory, and increasingly frail body. What are her days like? Do they slow down again from boredom and lack of purpose? Are her days just burdens to her?

I visit and keep her company as often as possible (Dad died in 2012), and she now has 24/7 Visiting Angels companions (expensive but so much better than nursing home alternatives if you can afford it). These women are saints and so good to her. They alone could help me keep some faith in what has become a degenerating moral universe. She generally does as well as I can hope for, though there are times when she gets depressed about her decline and increasing isolation. Church and going out with her shrinking circle of childhood cronies meant a lot to her. COVID-19 has destroyed all of that.

Again, I am grateful for everything I have been able to achieve in the greatest country in the history of the planet. So how do I slow time down again, and continue to enjoy the bounty of this gift of life? Any suggestions? What have those of you in similar life circumstances discovered that you might share?

This seems like a more pleasant and uniting topic than the usual "everything is going to hell because of X".