Last-Time Thinking

There comes a point – it has arrived for me - when one begins to think in last-time terms: last time to do this, see this, feel this. Is this – or might it be – the last time I’ll visit Paris, the last time I’ll eat a perfect peach, the last time I’ll have sex? For everything there is a season, the Bible says. And the season is limited, it passes. One time WILL be the last.

Last times can come at any age, of course. The last time I went to school was long ago – as was the last time I ate squid-ink pasta, I hope. In younger years especially, they may happen without even a thought they might be the last: the last time I saw my father, who died suddenly; the last time I kissed my old lover, the cheating shit; the last time I wore the ring he took back. But, as one gets old, as one’s season unquestionably grows shorter, last-time thinking looms larger, and the point comes when the wondering about last times lurks everywhere – whether we acknowledge it or not. And whether or not we want it to. Once we begin to have last-time thoughts, there’s no not having them.

I can’t remember exactly when this point came for me. I still remember a time, not so long ago, it seems, when I could say, “I’ll do that next time,” without a hint of doubt or irony. Most likely, I’ll never go back to Buenos Aires, and so will not stay up past midnight to dance a tango. But on my most recent visit there, years ago, I could say I would, “next time,” and almost half-believe it – because I still had years and years ahead (barring that sudden death thing), and so I still might, if I ever really wanted to. I now acknowledge that my last time for possible midnight Buenos Aires tangos has passed. This is not a great sorrow for me: staying up past midnight is only slightly more appealing now than squid-ink pasta.

But other last times past are sorrows. If, in fact, I’ve already had my last trip to Paris, I’m sad about that. I’m not quite yet ready to accept that THAT last time has happened, but I have friends, at least as drawn to the City of Light as I, for whom there’s now no question: their last visit there has happened, except, maybe, as ashes to be scattered. We’ll always have Paris, in our memories, but even that’s something of a melancholy consolation. “Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” doesn’t really give much comfort during the lost phase.

It's a fact that last times are just steps along the path to that ultimate last: last breath. Now, THAT’S a LAST worth pondering. I remember a time when I didn’t think about it much – though even back then sudden plunges of airplanes or unexplained palpitations could bring on panic attacks. But back then, in calmer moments, calmer thoughts prevailed.

My husband has been heard to suggest (yes, I HEARD THAT!) that I’m obsessed with death. Is it any wonder? The next big step in life for me is likely to be that one. Now I won’t be having children; I won’t change jobs; it doesn’t look likely that I’ll be moving until that last big move; or getting a divorce (unless he persists in using that objectionable term, “obsessed”).

I don’t think of this outlook as bleak, no matter what others, including husbands, say. No, instead, rational. Though I will allow that it’s not irrational to ask, “Why think about it – since you can’t change it anyway?”

True to a degree, and if we were ever really able to live as though each day was our last, I’d agree. But who among us really lives that way? I readily admit that I don’t, no matter how many times I’ve resolved to.

I remember an elderly cousin saying (she was in her 80s when she said it; not so much older than I am now), about her intention to visit an even older cousin (in her 90s) “someday”: At that age you don’t put visits off. They’re both dead now. I wonder if she made it?

Of course, in the big scheme it doesn’t matter whether she did or not. But what does matter, really, in the big scheme?

No, wait. That’s verging far away from the live-each-day approach. To quote my father – not original with him, but often spoken, especially when it came time for the next drink: Live for today, tomorrow never comes. Was he a wise man after all? Or just a thirsty one?

Though, like all of every generation, I draw my life mantras from the pop music of my youth, I’ve begun to doubt the wisdom of “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” It had it’s utility in 1977, when that cheating lover left, and, thirsty myself, as well as heartbroken, I  gulped a second (or was it a third?) drink as I listened, rocked and wept. But then there were still all those tomorrows to think about (so we assumed), and no, we didn’t want to dwell on sad yesterday. And today wasn’t looking so great either. Time for another drink.

But that was long ago. The last time I rocked is past, except sometimes watching YouTube on mornings when I’m avoiding the blank Word screen – as I had avoided the blank sheet in the typewriter in times past. Passed too, the cheating lover – who died years ago, so Google tells me. And though the yesterdays are still good for a nostalgic cry once in a while, the tomorrows, even the potential ones, are clicking down fast. Not so long now to the last.

This all came into front-of-mind for me recently, when our housekeeper asked, in Spanish, which I didn’t understand, but Google Translate helped with the words (though not the subtext – I had to guess at that ): How much longer will you be able to climb up the stairs?

That was a reality slap in the face. I’d complained about the stairs (though never in Spanish, that I recalled); I’d huffed and puffed a bit toward the top. But never a thought that I might be climbing them for my last time. And yet, she wouldn’t have asked without a reason; and so I never climb them now without wondering, at least for a moment, if this MIGHT BE the last time.

And so now, realist that I am, each time I climb the steps, I keep in mind that it might be my last climb. And I exult when I reach the top, that I made it, even though I may be puffing. How’s that for living in the moment? No more thinking about tomorrow for me (though I’m not yet ready to give up thinking about yesterday completely). The tune of the song is the same, rerunning endlessly in my head as such tunes do; but the lyrics have subtly changed, befitting my NOW stage of life: Don’t stop thinking about a walker / Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here.