I act as though I’ll live forever, but on some days, I know better

By David McElroy · November 7, 2026

I feel out of place in this house.

At 3 a.m., it’s almost silent. It’s almost completely dark. Because it’s not my house, I notice every little sound and every faint glowing light on electronic devices. But the only sound I really notice is the quiet, rhythmic breathing of my sleeping friend in the next room.

I haven’t slept much this week, because I’ve been sitting up at night with a friend who had major surgery last week for life-threatening cancer.

I’m not much of a nurse, but that’s not why I’m here. She just needs someone to help her get to a bathroom every hour or two. She has drain lines to clean and empty. Incisions to clean and bind. Medications to take. Pain to endure.

I’m just here to help her stand and then to lie back down. To move a bandaged leg that can’t move much on its own. To make sure she doesn’t fall.

As she sleeps in unpredictable intervals, I have a lot of time to think. Since I’ve known this friend since we were both children, you would think I would be worrying about the stage 4 cancer that threatens her life. But that’s not where my thoughts are tonight.

Instead, I’m thinking about my own life.

Maybe that means I’m selfish. Or maybe it just means I’m human. Or maybe it’s God’s way of putting me into an uncomfortable place of asking myself questions that scare me.

My life today is nothing like what I thought it would be.

I’ve spent decades building expectations for myself, then trying to live out my plans — and then discarding them to start over.

At every step along the way, I’ve had to accept that the programming I received — from my family, schooling, churches, media and pretty much everyone else — was wrong. Nothing that I was told to want was worth wanting. Not in the long run.

And I kept having to learn — in very painful ways — that the things that truly matter were incompatible with living the kind of life I had been taught to pursue.

I’ve slowly learned to change my expectations and my desires. I’m a very different person now than I was when I was a child and when I was a young man. I’m not the same person I was 20 years ago or 30 years ago.

I’ve kept changing and growing — slowly learning who I need to be and how I need to live a meaningful life.

But as I’ve learned and changed over the years, there’s been one constant. I’ve always believed I had plenty of time. I’ve always believed I could still find solid understanding of who I needed to be — and I could still build a life that’s worth living.

The stillness of this experience with my friend isn’t making me feel that my life is almost over. I’m not feeling as though my life is wasted and I’ll never be what I need to be. That’s not the point, although I suppose it would be easy to draw that conclusion.

What I’m really feeling in the silence of this house tonight is a feeling of urgency. It’s a feeling that I can’t keep waiting. It’s a feeling that if I intend to become the man I was born to be, I can’t keep living as though I can start tomorrow or next week or next year.

I don’t have a fear of dying, but I do have a fear of never having lived.

This human life is more amazing and more full of possibility for depth and meaning and love than I ever understood. But now that I see its full potential, I have a serious fear of never taking advantage of it.

What does this mean in practical terms?

About 15 years ago — maybe a bit longer now — I started putting my life on hold. I realized how much I was having to change. I was changing so much — learning so much — that I no longer knew which way to go.

Soon, I was treading water until I figured everything out. And I’ve been doing that for more than a decade now.

I intentionally simplified my life. I slashed my living standard. I’ve lived without debt or financial stress or the trappings of upper-middle-class life that used to be normal to me.

Almost 13 years ago, I bought a modest house that needed many repairs. I’ve slowly upgraded it, but it’s certainly not what I used to consider normal. After spending a few nights in my friend’s house this week, I found myself feeling odd when I returned to my own house when the night was over.

In contrast to her nice house in an upscale neighborhood, my house felt dingy. I was oddly aware of the things here I’ve ignored. I noticed how I’ve come to accept living in a way that I wouldn’t have accepted not long ago.

It’s not that I regret simplifying my life. It’s simply that I realize I’ve gotten too comfortable with accepting what I have and not making it a home I’d be proud to offer to a wife and children.

A few minutes ago — while listening to my friend sleep — I got news that an attorney who I used to know well and work with in politics died a day ago. It felt like another reminder that life doesn’t go on forever — for any of us.

If I allow my life to go on the way it is, I’m going to stay in some form of survival mode. I’ll keep working and I’ll keep creating. I’ll keep reading and thinking and learning. All of those are great, but if I don’t build the loving relationships with the people I want in my life, are my growing knowledge and wisdom and understanding worth anything?

I’m not afraid of loss. I’m not afraid of pain. I’m not afraid of death. But I am afraid of throwing away the incredible gift I’ve been given — the gift of a life that can allow me to fully experience loving relationships with other people and with the God who made me.

I know that we’re not guaranteed anything in this life. I could get hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow. I could face stage 4 cancer. I could suddenly die from a thousand things. I know all that.

But I don’t really fear any of those things. I honestly think I have a lot of years left to live. I just want to build a life worth living — not in my head or in theory, but in the real, flesh-and-blood world with a fallible woman who wants to live and love with me.

I’ve had my life on hold for too long now.

I know I need to make some changes. But the changes need to start in one place.

I need to build an ordinary, imperfect life with a woman who I can love — and who can love me.

Note: If you’re unclear about the artwork here, here’s more of an explanation than I normally provide. This was inspired by the description of Clarisse McClellan’s family — and the role they play indirectly — in Ray Bradbury’s superb novel, “Fahrenheit 451.” The kind of family I want will stand out as weirdos just as Clarisse’s family did in the novel. But they were the sane ones, not the people around them. Read the book. Trust me.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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