100 Days: How I re-invented my world
When was the last time you had 100 days off? I have 100 days off and everybody is jealous of me. But am I jealous of me?
For most of us, it’s summer vacation, right? Fast rewind to age 11, June 30 and I am jubilant. Graduated 5th grade at PS 193 with honors. Last day of school is always a half day. I wonder why it’s never called first day of summer vacation. I skipped home on tiptoes all 7 blocks, cluthching my report card, 4 Excellents and a Good, probably social studies, even now a weak area. I yanked open the big brass door handle, darted down the hall for a quick bathroom break before Hostess cupcakes and… sloosh!! I careened across the tiles on the flying floor mat and came to an abrupt stop on the metal track of the sliding shower door. Chin vs iron: OUCHOUCHOUCHOUCHOUCH!!!!
To reapply my chin to my face required a number of heavy, black stitches. Blood mixed with tears mixed with snot ran down my face. My father did the repair. Yes he had a medical degree, no he was not a facial plastic surgeon. This resulted in a stint in sick bay for a good couple of weeks. So much for tennis and bike rides and — oh crap I can’t even shower.
Did I miss all kinds of “activities?” I wasn’t allowed to go to the beach anyway, even supervised: “Don’t get near that water you’ll drown.” My friends were all away at camp. My brothers were taking some kind of life-affirming bike tour of Canada. Most days I walked to the Brooklyn Public Library in the sweltering July heat, stopped at the soda fountain for a tall egg cream, wandered up the road and browsed in the shops, lusting over the cool T shirts I could not own: “nice girls don’t wear black!” and finally returned home to our slobbering Schnauzer with a filthy mind and chronically wet whiskers.
The rest of the summer? I re-read Gulliver’s Travels, painted horses’s heads on black velvet, made some star shaped mosaic tile ashtrays that, in the good old days, were filled and refilled with butts.
That’s a bunch of somethings. It’s easy to fill time with a malady. This story, however, is not about a malady. It’s about what happens to Gulliver when he realizes how lousy the Yahoos really are; it’s about the black velvet that didn’t get glitter paint; it’s about the grout between the tiles instead of the tiles themselves.
Why is the prospect of summer so glorious? Is it the lazy mornings without the alarm to shatter your soporific bliss? Or putting on ripped up jeans and broken in sneakers? Everyone does that anyway. For me, it just meant I’d have more time to take the ugly canine out for his walk. And now it’s been so long since I had this kind of time that I’ve forgotten why it held such promise.
This 100 days is partially self imposed. I asked for it. When I first heard about this new job, I had fantasies of me in the new role, I studied and rehearsed for the interviews, and procrastinated opening “the big envelope” when it arrived lest it hold a rejection. They said yes, I wanted to say yes, but first I would have to say no. Two jobs would be one too many.
I fretted over quitting for weeks, wondering how to time it, what to say, how much to disclose. But I never wavered, I always knew it was right.
I got ready: I put my financials in order, planned a big art project, got my laundry out of the way, and shared my secret with my inner circle of trusted friends. I had chosen the friends whose lives would change so they would know they were special. I was indebted to them yet I had betrayed them. We’ll get to that tomorrow.
Then splat: it came out. Like the feeling you have at the end of final exam period, I was exhilarated. I gathered empty cartons and loaded them with 12 years of documents, nostalgia, assorted mugs and my beloved Keurig. I found birthdays cards signed with a dozen names, thumb tacks fallen in the dusty cracks, post cards I’d never mailed from work vacations we’d needed for winter thaw. The office walls were soon naked, no longer adorned with diplomas, awards, and various gifts of objets d’art that had been painted and framed just for me. My dearest assistant lingered at the threshold, ready with tissues.
Did I break down? did I crack under the strain? did I mutter a word of regret? well, sort of. No! I found my new place in the world. Like the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle, I wasn’t just rattling around in a cardboard box. I was moving up and out. There would be a brighter, smarter, and completely new future. But not for 100 days.
Which brings us to now. You don’t need to know about breakfast, meditation, or how I changed a light bulb. Those are all somethings. What we are figuring out is what’s in between. Or if there even is an in between. What neural connections are made after the last action and before the next? If you’re deciding to stop at the cleaners before you pick up a quart of soy milk, you’re still doing something. But if you went to the cleaners and don’t know where you’re next stop is, and YOU DON’T CARE, that’s the head space I’m investigating. Remember Seinfeld? the “show about nothing.” There’s a good reason TV Guide rated it the greatest television show of all time. Jerry and George and Elaine and Kramer made the minutiae of daily life look like fun. And that’s my plan.
As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears.
~ Rumi
After almost four decades spending almost every business day and many holidays and weekends fixing people (if you haven’t guessed, I’m a doctor), I’m accustomed to a certain level (high) of accomplishment, pretty much hourly. Even healthy people worry that they have something wrong, will have something wrong, or know somebody who has something. And I help them too. Sometimes the most help I can offer is to promise “No you do not have brain cancer.” Now for 100 days there will be no promises.
In 100 days, I will be Dr. Me again. Until then, my learned daughter warned me that I will gain 15 lbs, binge watch Westworld until I have bed sores, and immerse myself in E.L. James. I have a right, right? I worked hard and I deserve a break, don’t I?
Whoa! When my husband tells me to relax, I threaten him with immediate divorce. I scorn retirement, vacations longer than a weekend, having a beer on the boat deck. Not like I would ever have a boat, they’re for leisure, remember?
Now it’s time to walk out on the way. The 17 cartons of family photos in the basement can keep collecting dust bunnies. I’ll digitize them when my legs are both broken and I’m in extended traction. I’m not going to train for a half marathon; a whole would be too ambitious, a half would be, well, too far to run. I’ll forgo the opportunity let the face lift, lid lift, brow lift, and lip filler bruises fade.
Nope, I’ll just keep not doing things and finding the way as it appears. If you want to navigate these unchartered waters with me, stay tuned. I see some whitecaps ahead.