It was my b’day last Sunday! Can we get morbid? (plus a TV rec & a dog)
I turned 64 last Sunday – and I have to confess to feeling a bit weighty. (May’s lighten-my-load-mode is so yesterday!)
Yes, it was my birthday, so I’m inviting you to indulge in a little death talk with me. I’ll share some resources – a TV series rec – and a gift from my boys the night before. Really, my birthday musings on life.
The resource: Living to Die Well — a short, provocative essay by a super-cool (female, right?!) palliative care physician that grabbed my eyeballs last week. The doc referenced a TV series I had just finished: Dying for Sex, based on a true story, made into a podcast, about a young woman named Molly who, upon learning she doesn’t have much time left on this planet, ditches her not-very-aware husband person and goes on to have A LOT of VERY INTERESTING SEX. Some quite eye-opening — and let’s just say there are porn moments, so you are now warned. But to be clear — what really matters is so much more than the full-on nudity and shenanigans.
What do the article, the series, and my birthday have in common?
The doc, who works with literally-dying people every day, notes beautifully that all of us, always, live alongside death. Yet we deny it, fight it, and bucket-list our way around it. Even as we have a finite number of Thanksgiving Days on this planet. My parents are in their 90s and relatively healthy, so the likelihood is high that I’ve got about 30 Thanksgivings to go. (Shout-out to Oliver Burkeman, 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.)
What’s so terrifying about death, anyway?
I think it’s because of our fear that we don’t really know how to live at all.
We don’t have to wait until we are dying — or until our birthday — to consider what it means to live, truly and freely.
For the doc, for Molly, and for me, really, it’s about trying to live with aliveness.
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” — Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth
For me, aliveness starts with trying to pay attention. To slow down, and enjoy ordinary moments, with all my senses. It’s surely not about grand gestures. Or bungee jumping. It’s more about smelling puppies (yes, that’s in the article).
For my birthday, my sons insisted on taking me out to dinner the night before — even though I protested: too much to do, I’m tired, blah blah. So, we met, had dinner, and near the end, I was handed a birthday card. (Dog on the cover, of course.) The inside read:
“Happy birthday to you, big goofy goober 😊 Love, your little goofy goobers” (complete with smiley stick figures).”
My sons are 31 and 29. You betcha that card is on my desk — and that goofy dog is staring at me as I type out this newsletter.
So, happy birthday to me!
Meanwhile, I wish you moments of aliveness.