Dear World: My 92-Year-Old Neighbor Died

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

My 92 year-old-neighbor died.

The word “died” is my preference. Someone corrected me recently. Said that “passed” was softer.

That’s precisely why I don’t use it.

***

Roger was the first person to welcome me here. Pulled right up onto the lawn. Drove a white Chevy pick-up truck. I always knew it was him, driving by, because of the two little Irish flags on his vanity plate.

***

Went to the wake. Made small talk with strangers I’ll never see again. Didn’t know anyone in line. Except for the two at the end: Roger’s son, and Roger’s grandson. My other two neighbors on either side. (Yes, the whole family lives on this hill.)

***

Drank whiskey in a bar you’d never know was a bar unless you were from around here. It’s in a teeny, tiny hotel, in the middle of a valley, stuck between the mountains.

Roger liked whiskey.

Not more than Guinness, of course, of which he would drink two per day, but only two, never more.

At least, that’s what he’d been doing the last three years since Mary died.

***

The last we spoke, he was passing by the house in his white Chevy pick-up truck, going 15 mph (his preferred speed) and I was on the front porch, and it was such a perfect day, I waved for him to pull over.

“Come up and have a whiskey!” I called.

We sat on the porch, he and I, and I poured him the biggest dram he’d ever seen. Served us some Stilton, some Grana Padano, some horseradish cheese from Vermont. Roger thought the horseradish cheese was outrageous. But, not more than me. He certainly thought I was outrageous, too. Though in a lovely way, I am convinced.

***

Roger was disappointed when I tore down the old barn.

“You couldn’t salvage any of it?” he grumbled from the window of his white pick-up truck.

I told him it was unsalvageable. All but an 1800s cast iron & wood block pulley. I told him I’d save it for him.

It’s still on my porch.

***

Sometimes I worry that things will sit on my “porch” forever, just waiting for me to get to them.

That phone call.
That text.
That birthday card.
That email.

I’m guilty of this often, not being able to keep up with it all. Sometimes I feel like I only have 1 tsp. of energy per day. Sometimes I don’t know where other people get it.

Everyone else seems to have plenty of time to chat for hours over the phone; to repeat the same stories they’ve repeated for years; to drown others in their Olympic-level small talk.

Meanwhile, I’m hiding from the bug guy because even the idea of talking to him for ten minutes about how unfair his company’s policies are about overtime—or whatever riveting subject he’s unpacking in my kitchen—feels like an assault.

Every brain cell I dedicate to that is a brain cell I will not have for what actually matters to me.

And, oh, what a selfish thing to think!

But, it’s true: your brain has finite daily capacity. And even worse?

Decades of research show that when a task does not align with your intrinsic motivation (i.e., things you deeply care about), it depletes you more.

Meaning:
Listening to someone drone on about their employer’s overtime rules?
WAY more draining than writing, creating, imagining, or doing anything that matters to you.

To which I say:

EWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How awful is this to realize?!?!?!?!?! What if I start resenting everybody? Even today, at Subway, the chick was rambling on and on and on and on at the register—long after I’d paid, and long after she’d handed me my (formerly) hot sandwich.

I had to tell myself: ENJOY THIS PRECIOUS HUMAN INTERACTION, YOU ASSHOLE.

But it is hard when you only have 1 tsp of energy, and the girl at the Subway counter is taking it.

***

Recently I thought about giving myself the gift of shutting off my phone for the whole month of December. Wouldn’t that be a fantastic Christmas gift?

It’s not that I don’t like people.
It’s that I don’t like having to be available.

When your energy is finicky, being “on” at all times—hearing the dings that feel like 1,000 lb weights dropping onto your shoulders—is like having this constant, low-level energy suck.

Except, apparently it isn’t so low-level.

Apparently it’s really scientifically fucking exhausting.

***

I do have one redeeming quality about myself (since you probably think I am a socially-devoid goblin with NONE), and that is this:

When I am with you, I am really with you.

You have all of me. All of my attention. All of my focus. All of my energy.

Phones don’t get looked at. Everything else falls away. I am not thinking about other things than whatever story you are telling me. I am completely immersed in your world.

That day that Roger came up to the porch for our last whiskey?

I was really, really there.

***

Maybe this is why the things that matter to me end up sitting on my metaphorical porch.
Not because I don’t care.
But because I care too much to rush them.

Maybe this is why the texts sit there.
Why the cards sit there.
Why the phone calls sit there.

Because when I finally bring something in from the porch, it’s getting all of me—not the scraps left over after Bug Guy and Subway Girl and the thousand tiny energy leaks that keep happening just because I’m alive.

Roger knew this.
He drove slowly.
He drank his two Guinness.
He always had time for what mattered.

And maybe that’s the point:
We only get one teaspoon a day.

We just have to decide who gets it before it’s gone.