It is very frustrating when you witness people running past you. This time it isn’t people with Quebec license plates in cars on the New York State Thruway. It isn’t every student in my ninth grade advanced algebra class. And, it isn’t all my peers reaching puberty a few years before I do. This is far more demoralizing (maybe). My current humiliation is coming from a mother/daughter duo, a young male gay couple, a teen-age girl kicking a soccer ball, and a gentleman close to my age with a 20-something female, positively not his daughter. I try desperately, to no avail, to crank my legs to a higher level. My limbs are giving me a stern reminder the gear I am searching for abandoned me ten years ago. I am left with no choice but to settle in at a pace suitable for my present circumstances. There is nothing shameful about embracing the role of the tortoise in the race through this world, so I settle in, scan the vast ocean to my left making sure I have enough stamina to complete my journey, and try to come to terms with the moment.
The moment is about a 58 year-old man struggling to hold onto all things vernal. The long runs while vacationing in the Caribbean this past week were bittersweet . They allowed me to conjure up what once was, yet understand what will never be again. Ending up a cliché was not one of my childhood goals. The older man appreciative for what life has brought him but still holding on to the nostalgia of yesteryear was never my plan. What pisses this old man off the most is that he still holds on to resentment and anger for his short comings in adolescence. The pain of my youth has not completely receded and probably will not in this lifetime. I attempt to realize how selfish it is to, at my age, still dwell on not being the king of the prom, let alone not even getting acceptance from my first choice for a date. It has become evident to me that I am still obsessed with some kind of unobtainable missed glory redemption.
The girl at the Craven bar was named Natalia. I had gone down to the resort watering hole to check my phone which had not been touched in two days. I felt a nudge to see who missed me, who might have passsed or what emergencies had erupted back home. Natalia inquired as to why anyone would be flipping through a communication device at 9:00 pm on this majestic starlit night. I smiled, shut the power off and engaged in conversation with Natalia and her companion Liz. Natalia is 27 years old and was born in the Ukraine. Her parents won an immigration lottery in 1991. Her mother applied for the one in a million shot at the jackpot of free passage to the United States. Next thing you know, Natalia is a one year old baby being welcomed to America by a immigration officer at Kennedy Airport in New York. The three of us shared a couple of drinks and plenty of laughs before it was time for me to go back upstairs to my family. Natalia gave me a hug with a peck on the cheek and said, ” I hope this goodbye is not forever.” I headed back to my room feeling a connection between a young girl born in Europe and an old American man searching for something left behind.
The workout room can be a desolate place when you are at a secluded chichi hideaway. Ford Buckner was pushing up weights with a sense of urgency which caused me to pause. In November, we don’t forget what it was like last summer. That can be a problem if your favorite day of the year has always been June 21st. In late autumn we are able to easily conjure up triumphs of summer. We are just as capable of understanding what we are now unable to do. Ford is 18, from Boston Mass., 6’2″, with a lean near-perfectly developing body. “What is your best sport?” I shout across the dumbells. “Soccer or tennis. I have been offered partial scholorships in both sports but turned them down. I am going to study engineering at Vanderbilt in the Fall.” I was perplexed that affirmation in athletics could be treated so cavalierly. I would have died for what Ford seemed so dismissive of. How could someone this young have so much perspective. “Ford, you are a very old soul,” was all I could muster to say. I had been shut out from any awards at high school graduation. There were zero colleges knocking on my door regarding my athletic prowess. I struggled in the category, I still have haven’t figured out, called love. Only recently am I grasping that my-early-in life disappointments motivated me to live a more ambitious life. It gives me the confidence that all the best is ahead of me. Ford from Boston has a 40-year head start.
Steve was easy for me to pick out sitting poolside. The first time I noticed him, alone with his book, I was convinced I was getting a glance into my not so distant future. It turns out Steve is 75-years-old, and a retired partner for Price Waterhouse. Two things about him grabbed my attention: his golden bronze tan and the Camel cigarette that hung so naturally from his mouth. He was reading a book called ‘How to Talk to a Liberal,’ by Ann Coulter. I could not resist striking up a dialogue with a man who could be me in 30 years. “I bought a house here two years ago right before my wife died. The house is for sale and now my children bring me down here to this place three times a year,” he said between coughs. A hard-working life filled with booze and smokes was leaving no one confused why Steve is a very old looking 75. After about an hour, of what I would have to admit was more of an interrogation, I ask Steve my last question. “You are closer to the end than the beginning, if you had a bucket list, what would be the number one thing on it?” For the first time we had been together he took his Camel smoke out of his mouth and crushed it into the ground. “I want to fall in love one more time.”
Every day of the week of my respite I return to the ocean for my slow jog. Finally, acceptance had taken over. No longer can I even fake being the hare, it is long overdue for me to embrace the role of the tortoise. It is a role I have been misguided in avoiding for so long. I cruise by several folks taking a casual stroll in the early morning sun. Only a few runners go flashing past. As they put distance between us, I wrestle with feelings of jealousy, resentment, and anger. I can hear the sound of their feet in the sand gaining on me. Even more challenging is to fight off the urge to race after the ones who have already gone by. At the halfway point, before I am ready to head for home, a man in his 30’s is running in my direction. I decide to try and stay close to him on my return trek. For approximately a mile I stay within ten yards of him. When I reach my personal finish line, I collapse in the sand and notice the hare in front of me has slowed to take a glance behind him. I have been blessed with more than I could have ever dreamed of in this short life. I will not give into the dark voices inside of my head that keep trying to convince me I am near the end. I shout back at them, “I am the tortoise. I will keep moving, and I have only just begun.”
