...and you have a couple of days to just chill

It may have been during the second manhattan, or maybe even the third, but though it occurred more than several years ago, I remember the exchange as though it was yesterday. A work buddy and perhaps unknowing mentor and I were sitting having a rare Friday after-work drink at a high-end watering hole not far from my former office. Normally there were at least four of us in this Friday group, but for some reason on this day it was just us two…and as was always the case with this good conversationalist, the flow was going well. We were covering the usual glory-day topics with the typical degree of exaggeration, sarcasm and cynicism, but on this day he seemed unusually reflective.  

At one point I looked over at my friend and his expression appeared especially whimsical. I asked him what was up and in what seemed to me at the time as an extremely rare glimpse inside this otherwise private man, he responded by saying the something pretty close to the following…

“You know…I was just thinking. When you’re young, you’re a kid and you’re stupid. You spend all your time running around not making most of your youth and without the perspective to really make it count. Then…you get married and have a family but you’re so busy climbing the ladder at work and you really don’t have time to enjoy things as much as you should. After that you get to a point where you can hopefully sack away a good amount of money so that you really can enjoy things later in life…so you spend your focus on accumulating some wealth. Then in the blink of an eye, you wake up one day realizing you’re much closer to the end than you ever thought was even possible…and you wonder what happened. Where did all the time go…how did it all pass by so quickly?”

At the time, the exchange was memorable less for the profundity of the words than the fact that it seemed an almost miraculously introspective for a cat that seemed almost incapable of sharing an intensely private thought. I recall taking another hit of my bourbon and sweet vermouth, not thinking much about it at the time. However as I grew older, the actual content of his words became more memorable, and as I crossed the 50-year mark in my own life, they became almost hauntingly prophetic and resonated even more.

My friend passed away unexpectedly last year…and his untimely passing left most of those that knew him completely blown away. True to his intensely private form, it appeared he had managed to keep his knowingly terminal illness away from most of his family and friends…probably in an attempt to keep any of them and us from focusing on him…or for feeling at all sorry for him.

I saw him just two weeks before he passed away…on a warm magical afternoon at a mutual buddy’s gorgeous riverside home during a small get together for a couple of industry-related friends. It was clear he wasn’t quite himself, and when I asked how he was doing he casually brushed it aside by saying his back was hurting a little, and that he was struggling with some minor pain.

I remember glancing over at him toward the end of the evening that day. After hours of great conversation, good food, live music and epic weather, I caught him in a rare smile. I looked over and asked him what he was thinking…and over the music he simply said… “If I had an opportunity to do it all over, I’d have spent more time doing things like this.”

Not sure what you’re planning this weekend, but whatever it entails, here’s to hoping it includes more riverside-like time than any kind of unpleasant work. Sure…you’ll probably have to devote some time to things other than play and loved ones and that’s actually OK (maybe even good)…but see if you can’t keep it all in balance. If you’re well-rested, you might even have the stamina to do a better job when you get back in the saddle on Monday. Have a wonderful couple of days, and if you want to give it a jump start…you can begin with a little good music.

Upon learning that I fiddle a bit with the ukulele, a work colleague of mine asked yesterday if I’d ever heard of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. I had not…but I have now and you can too by clicking this cool little hyperlink.

*Please excuse the pour grammar, bad spelling,  atrocious apostrophe work and the misuse of words like pour and poor (and maybe even profundity). There just wasn’t time to proof this today…and even when I do, I still manage to get it wrong.