Front Loading My Life

My parents, both children of the Great Depression, taught me to defer gratification. They never bought anything on credit. Vacations were camping trips in the family Ford. If you wanted something, you saved and bought it when you had the money in your hand.

While I still agree with my parents' views to some degree, since my cancer diagnosis, I've broken ranks.

If I want a ripe papaya out of season, I pay $4 for it and enjoy it to the last slippery bite. If I want a few potted flowers to brighten my front porch, I buy them and get my money's worth every time I enter or leave the house.

And last summer, when I still had the money, I paid $6,000 for my 1964 Corvair.

Now, sometimes, I play first and clean the house later (or not at all), rather than "work first, play later," as my mother taught me. The past two days, in glorious weather, I've been out running around town in the Corvair. Even going to the post office and the bank is fun in that car. People smile when they see it, and I smile back.

I call this new view of life "front loading." It means that I do the things that are most important to me--and to my children--now. Because all I have is now.

In November of 2003, my younger son and I squeezed a trip to Charleston into a busy week that included cancer treatment on Friday and taking the plane for South Carolina on Saturday. Why? Younger Son has been a serious student of the Civil War since the age of 10, when he read "The Boys' War" by Jim Murphy. He wanted to go to Charleston to see the Civil War submarine, the Hunley, and Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the war were fired.

I've been trying for years to take Older Son, a student at the University of Washington, with me to Tokyo for a week or two. He was born in Japan, and he wants to spend some time there practicing martial arts, but he's also ambivalent about visiting the country of his birth after so long away.

I've been back twice since my cancer diagnosis, once with a friend, and once with the military-history-nut younger son. I let him set the intinerary, which included Hiroshima, Himeji Castle, the war museum at Yasukuni Shrine, and the Japanese Self Defense Forces PR Center. If this boy doesn't earn a Ph.D. in history, it won't be my fault, that's for sure.

Japan has been a big part of my life. I have a master's degree in Japanese language and lived in Japan for a total of seven years, including a couple of years working for Newsweek. I have good friends there whom I see all too infrequently.

And next October, when the entire U.S. retail world goes insanely pink, I hope to be out of the country, in Japan if possible. That's part of my Boycott October plan.

If you've read this far, you might draw the lesson that all anyone has is the present, regardless of whether they are sick or healthy. And you might conclude that everyone should "front load" their lives and eat dessert first.

I would agree, except that I hate "shoulds" and I try never to tell anyone else how to live, even if I'm asked. But you are free to draw that lesson if you choose.

The Boys' War

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Front loading sounds like an excellent policy for most of us! And I love the stories about Younger Son - he reminds me of my own little history-loving redhead.

[Jeanne]

Redheads are special, no question.

Do you have the book, The Boys' War? If not, I can loan it to you. It's an amazing story.

Jeanne