When I entered the final year of my third decade on Earth, I adopted a catchphrase about how I’d “reached the age at which age starts to feel like age,” repeating the old saw whenever a conversation turned to our individual states of human impermanence and the enfeebling process attendant to growing old.
For me, the truth has been less depressing. Actually, it’s been downright inspiring.
If I’m being honest — and I’ve gotten more honest with age — this intermediate stage of life feels more akin to ripening, a state of beautiful decay imbued with more meaning and significance, and without the confusion of adolescence or the clutter of early adulthood.
Now, having recently turned 40, it is with technicolor clarity that I realize one cannot simply bend the rules of calculus to avoid this glaring fact — aging means inching closer to death. But it also means gaining ground on the clueless indifference and careless apathy that characterized my salad days. It means becoming richer in confidence and compassion as the investments in friends and family pay greater dividends. It means liberation and freedom, independence and identity.
Youth is wasted on the young, to be sure; but wisdom seems too often to be simply wasted. Fortunately, I drank deep from the well of wisdom replenished by my loving parents as well as the extensive catalog of books and movies that populated my childhood home and enriched our lives.
To that end, I was recently reminded of the paternal advice dispensed by Frank Buckman, a fictional father figure in the 1989 Ron Howard film “Parenthood.” Toward the end of the movie, the character played by the late great Jason Robards conveys the following pearl to his son, played by the inimitable Steve Martin (who at the time was 44 even though his character is 35): “There is no end zone. You never cross the goal line, spike the ball and do your touchdown dance. Never.”
That advice never resonated so clearly than on a recent Saturday as I embarked on a fundraising challenge to run as many laps as possible in a 12-hour period on Mount Sentinel, the iconic Missoula landmark emblazoned with an “M” near the University of Montana campus. Although the running challenge was bracketed with a start and end time, its infinite-loop format — as well as the literal and figurative peaks and valleys I encountered — was fertile territory to wax metaphorical about the meaning of life.
As a fundraising event and endurance challenged to raise awareness and resources for clean air, the run was hardwired with a purpose-driven incentive. It entailed completing a four-mile loop that gained nearly 2,000 feet of elevation, over and over, for 12 hours. Simple.
As an endurance feat, however, things got a bit more complicated, not only as I navigated the delicate balance one must strike with regards to nutrition, but also the mental pitfalls that lurk around every bend in the trail, ready to consume runners like a Sarlacc sand-pit monster in “Star Wars.”
Over the course of 12 hours, I experienced emotional highs that caused me to erupt in hysterics, followed quickly by psychic nadirs that caused me to blink back tears and question my existence. By the end of the 12 hours, however, I had logged 40 miles (for 40 years!) and nearly 20,000 feet of elevation gain.
I’ve never felt more empowered. Except, that is, when it came time to ascend the stairs to my bedroom later that night.