You just found a remote that enables you to fast forward through the tough times in your Life.
Would you use it?
I started counting the number of twists and turns life was throwing at me recently. It wasn’t anything formal. No notches on the wall of my study. No red pins in a map. Just a mental note; a bell ringing, like someone entering a bakery. There’s another one.
First the Pandemic. Then the numbers coming out each day about new cases. Staying at home, followed by, well, more staying at home. Short walks around the block wearing a mask. Short trips to the stores, standing in lines, wearing a mask and trying to act like this was normal — when it wasn’t.
Normal, as a stable concept began to get shaky because nothing seemed to fit under that category anymore.
Trying to go back to work, but feeling a little scared and unsure. Thinking: What happens if the feeling remains, even if the job comes all the way back? Will the joy of meeting new people and talking to them about their lives, return?
Weird things got up to about 179 and I thought, that can’t be. But I wasn’t only counting major events. Not like the numbers on TV. Just things that felt different. Felt like they were about to change, whether I wanted them to or not.
Normal, as a stable concept began to get shaky because nothing seemed to fit under that category anymore. Sleep became problematic. Breakfast, usually a simple matter, now began with a good long stare into the fridge; followed by eight items being brought out and placed on the counter, where the staring continued, until I had narrowed it down to bacon and eggs. Which is what I usually had.
Rough times, is what I’ve been calling it. Simple term for a very complex affair that has me stopping mid-stairs or when opening the car door and thinking about what I am doing and why. Nothing just flows from beginning to end. Everything catches on something; an idea, a point to nitpick, something that bugs and gets under my skin and there I am staring down at my cat asking her why she’s sitting in the middle of the doorway, so I have to leap over her to get into the bathroom.
Tough spots, is another name I use. When the TV show, the sixth one I put on in the space of 20 minutes, is not working for me and I can’t focus on the dialogue, the scenery, or the actress doing a bang-up job of being a serial killer’s wife.
That’s when I grab the TV remote and back out of Hulu or Netflix or whatever else I’m watching and get this idea: What if I had a different kind of remote, one I could use to fast forward through this whole Pandemic and everything else? Straight through until I think it would be over. Like fast forwarding through the commercials on American Idol or Wide World of Golf.
Would I do it? I mean would I just hit the button and speed through the next six months? All of those six months. The morning kisses. The walks with my wife. The phone calls with both daughters. The BBQs. The visits. The anger and laughter. The bank deposits. Walking down the produce aisle at Trader Joe’s.
Everything. All gone. Just so I could get to the other side of this. Just so I didn’t have to question what was normal anymore. What was new. What part of life, my life, was never going to be revisited again, because it didn’t exist any longer? Extinct. Gone like T-Rex, scurrying down the highway. Small arms flailing as it journeyed back to the Jurassic period.
It’s not that what is happening is bad. It’s not. It’s just that change is never simple. It hurts sometimes. Even the small stuff. The non-earthshattering things that we get into all the time. Starting a new job. Switching majors. Breaking up. Your oldest dating and driving all at the same time. We think, God, I wish I was past all of this stuff. But do we? I mean, do we really wish we could speed through it and rush to the ending, just so we don’t have to sweat through change anymore?
Or is it the whole point of change, to get us through the tough spots, the rough times, every moment of them. So that when we get to the other side, we appreciate every moment and actually learn something.
Maybe the pain and the tears and the anxiety churning through our minds at three in the morning, is the only way through to the other side.
And what about the good stuff. The smiles and laughter and early morning passion; the dinners with grandma and grandpa. Teaching your daughter to drive or ski or jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet. All the stuff wedged in between the shitty mornings, the late nights at work. The call that Uncle Bob won’t be coming home from the hospital.
With that remote in hand and a good idea of what pushing that button would do — would you do it?
Bring the anxiety down from 9 ½ to 4. Gain three extra hours sleep for a few months. Worth it?
It’s easy to think of fast forwarding as a fix. As a way of only having to deal with the good stuff that happens. But if all the rest is suddenly gone would we remember why the good stuff was so good? Would we have anything to compare it to?
Life is not something you want to get through but to live.
As much as I feel I need that remote at times. As useful as I think it could have been during certain parts of my life, I just can’t reconcile the idea of editing my life like a movie. Keeping in only the good parts. Where the hero catches and kisses the girl. Where he kicks the villain’s ass. Where he flies off in a private jet, to a private isle and lives a pampered life. Where he never sweats. Never gets cramps. Never bleeds, faints, falls, or gets his own ass kicked. It just sounds like a bad movie; one I wouldn’t pay to go see.
I’ve always liked the feel-good movies. Where the lead survives a rough childhood, but learns a lot from the old man next door. Tries and fails and loves from afar, but in the end overcomes his own fears, his own insecurities and somehow finds the words to tell her that he loves her and would do everything in his power to earn hers, if she just gave him a chance.
That’s my kind of movie. That’s my kind of life. One I wouldn’t want to fast forward through, but watch every scene and think about it.
Life is not something you want to get through but to live. The hard times, the aches and moments of wanting to give up, but don’t. All of it.
Then another thought. What if it could rewind too? You know, whiz back through the morning after to the night before. Past the two hours sitting outside your daughter’s dorm, after dropping her off for her first day at college. Back to the pizza and laughter of the day before. Would all of this backing up, make us afraid to move forward?
No, if I found that remote in an attic or had it accidentally delivered to me by Amazon Prime, I think I would read the manual — hands trembling for sure as I thought about it. But in the end, I’d write: Return to Sender.
No regrets.
What about you? What, would you do?
To a few friends — asking for their thoughts on this.
Sherry McGuinn, Timothy Key, P.G. Barnett, Chris Hedges, Charles Roast, Rasheed Hooda, and any others who might like to try. 😊
Joe Luca is writer and editor for ILLUMINATION and a published author and writer of children’s stories, short fiction, non-fiction articles, screenplays and poetry. Publications include Child’s Life, Children’s Playmate and others. There are some other articles below — have a read. And thank you for stopping by.
