Flow State

This summer break has been pretty much everything I needed it to be.

It didn’t exactly start that way. The week before the Rockford 70.3 was stressful. I was nervous about the race, questioning my training, questioning why I do these things to myself, and generally doing all the things you’re probably not supposed to do during a taper.

Then I raced.

I had decided to treat the race as my Misogi – a challenge hard enough that I wasn’t entirely sure I could pull it off. And I did. I didn’t just finish it. I did what I wanted to do there. I challenged myself, nailed it, and walked away feeling like I’d proved whatever it was I needed to prove to myself.

And then summer really started.

Two weeks later, we went to Michigan with the family and my in-laws. There was nothing particularly exotic about it, which was exactly the point. Pool. Reading. Kayaking. Family games. Dinners together. Sitting around. Talking. Laughing.

It was wonderful.

Then I had a few weeks at home before heading west to Utah.

Usually, I’m a Point A to Point B driver. The purpose of a road trip is to get to the place where the road trip ends. This time my wife came with me, and we slowed down a little. We stopped along the way. We took our time—well, *my* version of taking our time—and actually enjoyed the trip instead of treating I-80 like a problem to be solved.

Then we had a fantastic week together in Utah.

After she flew home, my college roommate and best friend came out for another week. Between the two weeks there was kayaking, tubing, hiking, dinners, movies, a comedy club, donuts and assorted other activities that mostly revolved around the question, “What should we do today?”

For that first week, I was probably 100 percent present.

The second week? Maybe 75 percent.

Part of me was tethered to home through my wife, and part of me was tethered to the increasingly bizarre job situation waiting for me in Chicago. That’s okay. Seventy-five percent present is still pretty good. I’ve spent plenty of weeks in my life at about 12 percent.

And now everyone is gone.

I’m still in Utah. I still have the mountains. I still have the pool and the kayak and the bike and the hiking trails. I could stay longer.

But I’m ready to go home.

I’ll start driving tomorrow morning. I haven’t decided whether I’ll make it a two-day or three-day trip. I could take my time, stop somewhere interesting, enjoy the journey.

That sounds lovely.

It also sounds absolutely nothing like me.

I’ll probably get in the car, point it east and immediately begin calculating whether I can shave eleven minutes off Google Maps’ estimate.

But I’m ready.

I LOVE being out here. Utah restores something in me. The mountains, sunshine, open space and slower pace do me a tremendous amount of good.

But I’ve also realized something over these last few days.

The pool is better with my wife sitting next to me.

Kayaking is better when someone else is paddling nearby.

Hikes are better when there’s someone to talk to.

Dinner is definitely better when I’m not sitting at a table by myself scrolling through my phone.

All of these things I love – mountains, bikes, kayaks, hikes, restaurants, movies—are really just settings. The people are what make them experiences.

So the summer did exactly what I needed it to do.

I challenged myself. I rested. I read. I exercised. I spent time outside. I spent time with family. I spent time with an old friend. I laughed a lot. I ate some very good food and probably too many donuts. I spent long stretches without worrying about what I was supposed to be doing next.

I feel restored.

And maybe that’s how you know a vacation has done its job.

You don’t desperately want to stay.

You’re ready to go home.

So tomorrow I’ll point the car east toward Chicago, toward my wife, toward whatever strange adventure the job situation has waiting for me.

There will be considerably fewer mountains.

But the company will be better.

One of my favorite Korean dramas is Because This Is My First Life. The title always struck me as odd until one of the characters explains it:

“This life… is everyone’s first.”

Such a simple idea. We’ve never been this age before. We’ve never had this exact collection of experiences before. Every new chapter of life is, by definition, the first time we’ve lived it.  It’s a great way to think about life as we live it.

That’s what I was thinking about today.

I’ve never been laid off before. I know people who have. I’ve read about it. I’ve certainly imagined what it might feel like. But imagining something and experiencing it are two different things.

It’s strange. Not because I don’t know what’s next. Not because I’m panicked. Just because my brain keeps saying, “Huh… so this is what this feels like.”   We expect ourselves to have the proper emotional response to every situation, but why would we? When we’re doing something for the first time, we’re making it up as we go.

The first day of high school.

The first date.

The first child.

The first funeral of someone close to us.

The first time we watch our parents grow old.

The first layoff.

None of us has a script.

Looking back, every chapter of my life that once felt unfamiliar eventually became normal. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being the new lawyer. I stopped being the new teacher. I stopped feeling like I had no idea what I was doing. This chapter will probably be the same.

Maybe that’s what I like so much about that line from the show. It reminds me to give myself a little grace.

After all, this is my first layoff.

Just like everything else in life, I’ve never been here before.

I cleaned out my classroom today.

Not much drama. A few books, some photos, my coffee mug, posters, and some other personal items.

The strange part wasn’t packing up.

It was realizing how routine the whole thing is.

Big organizations just keep moving. People come. People go. The machine rolls on.

I remember a great Onion article about a guy who returned to the restaurant where he used to work, expecting some emotional reunion, only to discover everyone basically shrugged because half the staff had turned over and nobody knew who he was. That’s life.

My school was there before I arrived seven years ago. It’ll be there after I’m gone. During my time there, plenty of teachers left. New ones arrived. Administrators changed. Students graduated. Freshmen showed up. The school kept humming along.

It was the same in the Army Reserve. New commanders. New NCOs. Different soldiers.

Same thing at the State’s Attorney’s Office. New State’s Attorneys. New assistant state’s attorneys. New investigators.

Nobody’s indispensable. The world is surprisingly good at continuing without asking our permission.

It’s a little unsettling, though.

It feels like one of those parallel-universe science fiction movies. Somewhere there’s the universe where I still teach at my school. In this universe, someone else will eventually be in my room, sitting at my desk, wondering why the previous teacher left so many paper clips.

Give it a few years and there will probably be only a handful of people there who even remember I worked there.

Oddly enough, that’s also a pretty good description of life.

The world got along just fine for billions of years before I showed up. I’ll get my little blip. A couple of generations after I’m gone, I’ll mostly be a name on a family tree. Eventually, probably not even that. Meanwhile, the planet will keep spinning, kids will keep going to school, somebody else will teach AP Government, and somebody else will inherit the office chair I left behind.

You can find that depressing if you want.

I actually find it freeing.

It reminds me not to take myself quite so seriously.

Tonight I’m going to my music lesson. Then I’ll come home, spend time with my wife, probably make myself a martini, and be grateful for another ordinary evening.

Because that’s the deal.

We don’t get forever.

We get the blip.

Might as well enjoy the hell out of it.