J. Alfed Prufrock laments, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” It seems that some of my neighbors measure out, or at least schedule, their lives by doctors’ appointments. I promised myself I wouldn’t because, although I am living in a senior citizens’ building, I am not old; I am, ahem, in midlife, just a bit further along.
Yesterday I broke that promise. Well, all right, I didn’t measure my life by doctors’ appointments: I scheduled my bike ride around one. To Randall’s Island and back on Tosca, my beloved Mercian fixie, after a breakfast and before a lunch I couldn’t eat because my appointment would include blood work.
I’d planned to ride some more after my appointment. But when I got home, Marlee beckoned. A cuddle turned into a nap, which turned into real, deep sleep. Could I really have been so tired after riding only 25:kilometers? Have I become old, but without the poetry T.S. Eliot put in Prufrock’s mouth?
Carrie tried to call me a couple of times last night. She figured I was asleep and asked how my doctor’s appointment went. When I mentioned that the phlebotomist took five vials of my blood, she exclaimed, “No wonder you were so tired!”
It had been a while since any of my blood had been drawn. Did I drift into dreamsville? Or am I getting old, I mean, later in midlife?
As long as I’m not measuring my life in coffee spoons or doctors’ appointments—or anything else, really—I will be in the middle of my life. Measurements lead to comparisons, sometimes with the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. That’s not living your own life, in whatever way you choose. So what if I rode only 25 kilometers before my doctor’s appointment? That’s just one ride, one day among many in the middle of my life.
