{"id":40962,"date":"2026-11-07T03:17:32","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T09:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=40962"},"modified":"2026-11-07T03:17:32","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T09:17:32","slug":"i-act-as-though-ill-live-forever-but-on-some-days-i-know-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=40962","title":{"rendered":"I act as though I\u2019ll live forever, but on some days, I know better"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel out of place in this house.<\/p>\n

At 3 a.m., it\u2019s almost silent. It\u2019s almost completely dark. Because it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t slept much this week, because I\u2019ve been sitting up at night with a friend who had major surgery last week for life-threatening cancer.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not much of a nurse, but that\u2019s not why I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just here to help her stand and then to lie back down. To move a bandaged leg that can\u2019t move much on its own. To make sure she doesn\u2019t fall.<\/p>\n

As she sleeps in unpredictable intervals, I have a lot of time to think. Since I\u2019ve 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\u2019s not where my thoughts are tonight.<\/p>\n

Instead, I\u2019m thinking about my own life.<\/p>\n

Maybe that means I\u2019m selfish. Or maybe it just means I\u2019m human. Or maybe it\u2019s God\u2019s way of putting me into an uncomfortable place of asking myself questions that scare me.<\/p>\n

My life today is nothing like what I thought it would be.<\/p>\n

I’ve spent decades building expectations for myself, then trying to live out my plans \u2014 and then discarding them to start over.<\/p>\n

At every step along the way, I’ve had to accept that the programming I received \u2014 from my family, schooling, churches, media and pretty much everyone else \u2014 was wrong. Nothing that I was told to want was worth wanting. Not in the long run.<\/p>\n

And I kept having to learn \u2014 in very painful ways \u2014 that the things that truly matter were incompatible with living the kind of life I had been taught to pursue.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I’ve kept changing and growing \u2014 slowly learning who I need to be and how I need to live a meaningful life.<\/p>\n

But as I\u2019ve 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 \u2014 and I could still build a life that\u2019s worth living.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I don’t have a fear of dying, but I do have a fear of never having lived.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

What does this mean in practical terms?<\/p>\n

About 15 years ago \u2014 maybe a bit longer now \u2014 I started putting my life on hold. I realized how much I was having to change. I was changing so much \u2014 learning so much \u2014 that I no longer knew which way to go.<\/p>\n

Soon, I was treading water until I figured everything out. And I\u2019ve been doing that for more than a decade now.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A few minutes ago \u2014 while listening to my friend sleep \u2014 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 \u2014 for any of us.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not afraid of loss. I\u2019m not afraid of pain. I\u2019m not afraid of death. But I am<\/em> afraid of throwing away the incredible gift I\u2019ve been given \u2014 the gift of a life that can allow me to fully experience loving relationships with other people and with the God who made me.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

I’ve had my life on hold for too long now.<\/p>\n

I know I need to make some changes. But the changes need to start in one place.<\/p>\n

I need to build an ordinary, imperfect life with a woman who I can love \u2014 and who can love me.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> 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 \u2014 and the role they play indirectly \u2014 in Ray Bradbury\u2019s superb novel, \u201cFahrenheit 451<\/a>.\u201d The kind of family I want will stand out as weirdos just as Clarisse\u2019s family did in the novel. But they were the sane ones, not the people around them. Read the book<\/a>. Trust me.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel out of place in this house. At 3 a.m., it\u2019s almost silent. It\u2019s almost completely dark. Because it\u2019s 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 Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-aEG","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40962"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40980,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40962\/revisions\/40980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}