Closer Than You Think

I am writing to you about a paradox of the human experience: the closer you get, the further you want to be. 

Like a lot of theories, this one is not universally applicable. But after experiencing — like so many others in 2020  — a high frequency of death and stress, I claim this paradox is true, in part, for everyone. 

To say the grass is always greener on the other side does not examine the more important question: why? Why is it that once things go according to plan, we wish we made a different plan altogether? Why is it that the closer we get, the further we want to be?

Here is some proof. In today’s market, it is far less expensive to buy what’s new than fix what’s old. I’ve marvelled at how inexpensive new appliances are when compared to the cost of appliance repair. How can the repair of a small piece of plastic in a washing machine cost half the price of a new machine altogether? That new machine has much finer parts and more efficient usage. Naturally, the new machine won’t last as long as the old one because the consumer is demanding new machines faster than he is repairing old ones.

It’s not the repair man’s fault. (I admit the home warranty sharks don’t help.) The appliance repair man and the new appliance saleswoman are both operating in the same market. That market demands new machines more frequently than it creates repair tickets. As a result of this scarcity, the price of repair goes up. 

It takes a commitment — one counterintuitive to a consumer’s best practice — to prioritize fixing the old instead of buying the new over and over again. 

I’m not trying to blame the consumer here, either. I’m not trying to blame anybody — only prove that it is true: the closer we get, the further we want to be. We’d rather not read a manual or dust off a socket wrench. If time is money, then there is a price point in which it is not only easier to buy a new, but more frugal. And I dare you to show me a human mind not tempted by an easier, more practical way out of difficulty. 

Death has shown me this recently. 

Nothing is more taboo than death. 

We don’t speak its name. 

We dress it up or eviscerate it. 

We run from it when it appears. 

If given the opportunity, we’d avoid it forever. 

Then in walks the year 2020. 

It is not the year of hindsight as I predicted. It is the year when everyone must sit closer to death, closer to that unavoidable reality. Even those who have not experienced it have had to sit at longer lengths with their family. And what better reminder of mortality is there than watching a miniature version of you run around the house? You know that version of you will one day take your place. Parents prefer to live at a distance. Parents want to live vicariously through their children, not admit that their children will carry the burden of their death. 

I have felt the lure of the otherwhere in acute ways during the pandemic. I am more than ever travelling great distances on my screen and in my thoughts, wishing myself further and further away the more proximate this pandemic makes me to my family.

The closer we get, the further we want to be. 

How relieved I feel when I am deep into a lesson on the chessboard with my son and I hear my phone ping. I don’t know why it pings but it tells me there is more out there. And that is enough. 

This is not how I want to be. 

But this is the way I am. And I no longer master the practice of denial.

The shame is that when I just surrender all those distances — those vague otherworldly yearnings for more or excess or otherness — I feel incredible. I feel present.

I spent years convincing myself that the real rush of life exists in exploring the wilderness of the soul. But that’s not really true — not for me at least. 

I have never felt a rush like I have when I share a laugh with my child or catch my beautiful wife looking at me in that certain way. These are the moments that make life extraordinary. And still, I run. 

I run from these moments so far and so often that I sometimes lose the ability to recognize the person who learned the hard way how to sit and embrace them in the first place. It is in quarantine that the impulse to flee is strongest. Why is that? If I could only control my will, I would flip that switch — the one that tunes into the miracle — and leave it on for good. Instead, I’ve only learned that the switch — much like recovery — is a daily practice.

The days when I surrender the urge to flee — and embrace what’s in proximity — are filled with happiness and joy. People, please know I’m not referring to stock smiles here or Hallmark sentimentality — I am talking about ecstasy, glee. I am referring to what those Romantic poets called the sublime. I am talking about the thing I thought I could manufacture using drugs and alcohol — the thing that always eluded me.

And now, here I am, closer than ever to the thing I sought after all those years in active addiction, wishing myself somewhere else.

I caught a neighbor of mine — a father of 4 — at the park the other day. He had a clipboard. “Those aren’t papers to grade, are they?” I asked. He’s also a teacher. 

The paper was information for his girls to fill out as they walked to the park. In an effort to be more grounded, the family had been noting the trees in the neighborhood, collecting data on how they change and what they look like. 

Now that’s what I’m talking about. 

If it’s true that the closer we get, the further we want to be, maybe it’s also true that the closer we get, the less we take for granted. 

May I never take for granted the joys of my sobriety, the thrills of family, or the gift of sharing this life.

And may you be blessed in your journey, wherever it finds you as you read this post.