A Partial Life

Lloyd Cole and the Negatives--"Too Much" (mp3)
Pavement--"Here (live)" (mp3)

It was during the early minutes after intermission at a performance of Our Town that I realized how partial my life has become. We had gone to see a friend's performance, out of a combined desire to support him and a feeling of obligation, but we were very clear among ourselves that we were not going to stay for the entire play. No, we had a game plan. The play had started at 8 o'clock; we were going to be out of there by 9:45. That felt like enough. We wanted to get out, have a beer, get something to eat, reclaim the rest of the evening.

Welcome to the world of partial living. We're all doing it, aren't we?

You know how it goes: you get invited to a party, but you don't go for all of it like your parents would have done. No, you arrive late after having done something else, or you get there early and put your time in before heading off into the night. Or just you go. Or just your spouse. Or you drive separately, because one of you likes being there more than the other does.

Last night, we went out to dinner after a social event, but we didn't order dinner. She ordered a salad; I ordered an upscale pizza. We didn't want to commit to three courses.

We left the Bruce Springsteen concert last November early, missing the last 45 minutes of encores. It was a long drive back to Chattanooga.

I don't buy entire CD's anymore; I purchase only those songs that I think I will listen to based on an excerpt of 30 seconds or less.

For my many school obligations, I drop in for a half of basketball, the dress rehearsal of the musical, the start of a school dance, an alumni gathering until I'm seen by whomever I think needs to see me.

I don't finish television seasons if anything at all happens to disrupt the pattern, I leave books half read, when I go to church, I'm ready to leave after communion because the rest then seems unnecessary.

I used to try to time piano recitals so that I would arrive just before my children were about to play.

When we went to Pittsburgh a few years ago, we skipped the Warhol museum and only went to the gift shop.

There's a weird symbiotic relationship going on that I haven't fully figured out. Either I'm trying to do so many things that my free time has achieved a kind of hyper-value or else I am placing such a premium on time as I'm getting older that I want to be able to accomplish all of my obligations in such a way that I can still look at a day or an evening and see the potential for free, unstructured, unfettered time. Either way, the one keeps ratcheting up the other to where I'm planning out how large blocks of time in my head can be broken down into manageable engagements and when something, anything happens that disrupts my plan, I dissolve into either anxiety or anger (or both).

Anything that has no business taking longer than it should is a continuing source of irritation for me--the checkout line at a Wal-Mart, a slow driver, a confused food order in a restaurant, a load of laundry that became unbalanced and isn't ready to go in the dryer, a person who asks too many questions.

I have been looking beyond entire weeks or even months to the potential freedom that lies beyond, doing just enough of everything to get by. What havoc does this wreak on relationships, friendships, outlooks? When you're in the middle of it, it's hard to know, isn't it?

In the meantime, I guess I'll read student papers just enough to get the "gist," pick up the guitar from time to time to play only a few chords or a riff, watch 24 in pieces of episodes in different places on different computers, text instead of talk, walk the dog only until he pees three times and poops once instead of circling the block, cut only the front yard because no one can see the back.

Yes, I'll get it all in, get it all done, hit all of the check boxes on the mental list. And, yeah, I'll get to do some or all of whatever it is that I want so desperately to do. But there is little joy to be had in such a partial way of living, and when I get to that time and place where I think I am free of whatever feels like a duty, I know full well that I will either be too exhausted to enjoy it or too frozen by the empty openness of the options.