I have had a few conversations recently which made me think about what I am doing with my life. It is a theme I keep coming back to, so maybe there is nothing new here.
A friend, whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while, said she had been busy with work and “life happened.” She didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask but I don’t think I have come across anyone to whom life has happened and it turned out to be a good thing. If it had been good – and I don’t know what would qualify – then we would be talking about the actual news rather than a vague “happening.”
“Life happens” is the catchall for everything that we don’t control. Someone died. An unexpected break-up. Losing a job. Life happened. I don’t think anyone is going to describe a pregnancy as “life happened” though that is literally what is happening, possibly the only situation where the term is appropriate!
A few days later, speaking to another friend, I was asked about “life updates.” All I could muster was that I am still doing the same things – dancing regularly, still having a go at longboarding and doing a bunch of classes at the gym. I added I had gone back to my boxing class after ages, only because my arms were still shaking from the class.
That sort of set the tone for the conversation as we spoke about how I was trying all these “activities”, and he thought he should try pickleball. If I had asked him the question first, though, I wondered what we would have spoken about. Dropping his son off at football practice. An anniversary dinner with his wife. A trip to the US to maintain his green card.
Technically, we would both be listing activities but his would have felt like milestones. Every family birthday, anniversary, school recital was something special, something to share on the family WhatsApp group. Despite my heavy social calendar, rarely did something feel momentous.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I was living or just filling my days with stuff. Could the two be mutually exclusive? It is not something I have an answer to, yet, but I do have a vague notion of what that might be. And for a minute, I am going to keep aside the whole question of why I don’t think the things I do are significant – I need to get my money’s worth from therapy.
What distinguishes an activity from a milestone is whom you get to share it with. I might be publishing my first novel (I am not!), but it would probably be meaningless if there is nobody to celebrate it with. My 40th birthday would have been just another day if not for the people who came together to be with me. When I passed my last professional exam, I saw the result and went back to sleep because there was nobody to tell.
We need people in our lives to generate life updates. Friends. Family. Lovers. Strange co-workers even. And when life happens, it will be because of one of them. That’s life.