At Least You've Got Your Health: Or Not

I ran away from home this week!

The anniversary of my mother's passing was Monday, and my 63rd birthday was Tuesday. I was looking forward to my 63rd for sort of a funny reason. I was born in '63 and I turned 63. For some reason I got a kick out of that. I was NOT looking forward to my mother's anniversary. Well, I was and I wasn't. It was very much bittersweet, and I am guessing it will be forever. She actually passed less than an hour before my birthday last summer, and I am convinced she let go when she did because she didn't want me to have to deal with the anniversary being on my birthday. Fortunately, I was able to spend her last week with her, which was amazing.

To avoid dealing with all of these feelings while sequestered in my house in Boise from the smoke, I ran away from home, and I am glad I did, as it was actually an enjoyable escape from the smoke and heat and a nice way for me to commemorate the two days. It also oddly allowed me to feel more myself than I have in a while, which will make the rest of this article somewhat ironic.

While I was in Sun Valley, I had some interesting conversations and some good pondering time while sitting enjoying the Sun Valley sunset. One of these conversations was with my buddy Kevin. Kev and I met at Accenture shortly after I started, and we worked on a very short but intense project together and have been good friends ever since. I was at his wedding, I was there to welcome both his kids home shortly after they were born, and we have played lots of golf together, skied together, and caused our share of trouble together. Suffice it to say Kevin knows me well.

The morning of my birthday Kev called from Dublin. He said yes to moving over there for work several years ago, and he and his wife are very happy there. I answered and Kevin greeted me with what has become our customary greeting now on my birthday, "Happy birthday, old man." I am five years older, so I am guessing this greeting will last as long as I do. After chatting for a while and catching up on what's going on in his life, Kevin summed up by saying, "I have a wife I love dearly, amazing kids, and am relatively healthy, so I'm pretty lucky. If you have a great wife, a nice family, and your health, what else is there?"

He's not wrong, or I imagine he's not wrong. I say I imagine he's not wrong because despite my wanting to be married from the age of four, and always wanting to be a father, to teach my boy to throw a ball, and to walk my daughter down the aisle, I have not been married, and I don't have kids...that I know of, and despite my best efforts to stay fit and to not turn into my father physically, I am not fit anymore, although I am working on it again, and I am most definitely not healthy.

It really was from the age of four. My elder sister, she's the eldest of the five and she hates it when I say that, so...she is four years older, so I would ask her eight-year-old friends to marry me. I did the same thing in middle school when they were juniors and seniors. A couple even said in jest that they'd wait for me. When I was a freshman in high school I actually dated a senior, and then the same as a freshman in college. Maybe there was something to that? But not the point of the story.

When I was at Tilton School I took one of my all-time favorite players to coach with me on my tour of recruiting camps. He was to take part in the camps I was working as a way to get him more exposure to big-time programs. By the end of the summer it worked; he had an offer from Ohio State.

As we drove, somewhere on the highway in upstate Pennsylvania, he said, "Hey, Rock. Mind if I ask you a personal question? How'd it happen that you've never been married at your age?" I'm not sure which stung more, the not-married part, or the "at your age" part.

I explained that I had a three-year relationship at the end of college and afterward that didn't work out, and then a six-year relationship in graduate school and the beginning of my career at Accenture that didn't work out, and that I had sort of taken two years off from dating before meeting my ex-fiancée and having a whirlwind romance that ended just before Tilton. I am fairly sure that adds up to more than a decade.

The reality is that at that point I really hadn't thought about it much, and I definitely wasn't worried about it because although I was almost forty, I did not feel old at all, and in fact, as I have written before in other articles and essays, none of how I am currently feeling really hit me until I hit sixty and the wheels came off. It is like I woke up the morning of my sixtieth birthday and felt old and very alone for the very first time in my life. That was obviously not true. I am sure I had felt these things before, but it is how it felt from sixty on.

The funny part about all of this is that I have had plenty of people over the years try to compare the "ease" of being single and not having the stress and difficulties of being married and raising kids. The reality is that on average married individuals actually tend to live longer than single people do. As I have said before, I am not a doctor, so I will let you dig into that research. What I can tell you after "unpacking" the last several years is that two incomes are better than one, and shared responsibilities when it comes to the "heavy lifting" has got to be better than handling everything alone.

What I have been finding of late is that simple things like eating right, cooking, and cleaning are simply not fun anymore, and not-so-simple things such as surgeries and following doctors' orders are not at all fun solo.

One other funny text conversation happened while in Sun Valley, when I texted a childhood friend that, with rounding error, I have literally known my whole life. I sent him a few photos that I knew would give my location away, and he texted back, "You in Sun Valley?" He then followed it up with a refrain I hear pretty much anytime I am in Sun Valley, or almost anywhere fun and progressive, "Find yourself a honey while you're there."

This comment is never intended as bad as it sounds, or looks here in print. Just like my father's comments from a long time ago weren't, "Move to Chicago, find yourself a nice Midwestern girl and have a bunch of kids," which was his sage advice when I was choosing which office to work out of with Accenture. He also often uttered, "You know it is just as easy to marry a rich girl as it is a poor one."

I don't think any of these utterances are as bad as they look in print, and I know they all come from a place of wanting me to find someone to share my life with.

I know Kevin was not trying to be mean or hurtful. He was simply being honest and expressing that he is genuinely happy and why.

There is another piece to this that I know my editor will give me crap for when he reads this next line, but I do think karma has a lot to do with where I am now, and to quote Frank Reagan for a second week in a row, Tom Selleck's character on Blue Bloods, "I'm Catholic. We don't believe in karma," but I do, or at least I do now.

I have struggled through all of the "unpacking" years, which really began in earnest after returning from my drive home to see my parents five years ago, and seeing how far gone my dad was, and that my mom was warming up in the bullpen, to decide, am I a good person who has done bad things, or a bad person who tries to be good? I like to think it is the former, because I do think I always tended to have a good nature in the way I looked out for people and was generally kind, but the debate continues. Regardless of the outcome of that debate, I have done bad things, and I am not even talking about obvious trouble-getting bad things. I am talking about some of the way I lived while roaming the world and occasionally being somewhat attractive to the opposite sex, and not always available members of that sex, and I think eventually not always choosing the high road in all regards catches up to a person. I definitely think it has caught up with me.

If not karma, then just generally not being aware of the price the decisions I was making along the way were costing me. Decisions as simple as Steamboat or Chico, Norwich University or not, Boise or Knoxville, move home or stay? That last one I know has cost me far more than I could have ever imagined, and a cost in emotional capital I will never get back, while also knowing that some of this was out of my control.

To Kevin's point, and the player from Tilton, and even my buddy from home, I can only control what I can control, an overused expression at this point, but very relevant here. I know I can't go back in time. I know I can't make different decisions. One comical part in this, sort of, is that I have found myself wondering over the past several years why it was that I was "unmarriable," or why no one wanted to be with me, and then I am reminded through this process and by family and friends that it is grossly incorrect that no one wanted to marry me, and in fact quite the opposite, but yet here I am, and it still feels that way at times.

I was thinking the other day, as I was actually writing about always finding some physical flaw, or mannerism, or something as a reason to move on, that perhaps my doing this was a "preemptive strike" of sorts, being convinced subconsciously that I would eventually be left, that she would eventually realize that I wasn't very interesting and therefore unmarriable, and so I would find something wrong first. Or perhaps that is just a layperson's attempt to find a psychological reason for my being alone.

Here is what I do know. I am alone. I do not have a wife or kids, and despite the belief that being single is easier, this single person misses having a partner to share my life with. I do not have kids, and I therefore do not get to share their triumphs and tragedies and to see them grow into wonderful young adults. I will never have grandchildren to spoil and get in trouble with, and although I am fighting back against the ridiculous list of physical and psychological issues I am dealing with, it does feel most days like one step forward and two steps back.

Ultimately, I agree with Kevin that a good marriage, having someone to love, wonderful kids to enjoy, and your health are the key to happiness. I guess I am just trying to figure out if you lost the key somewhere along the way, then what? Can I call a locksmith?

I also know, because there are times I have felt this very strongly of late, and have even shared it with some, I believe I deserve better.