Ever Ready
I’m a classic pre-liver. Whenever something big is coming, I take it for a test drive before it actually arrives. I do the hills, the sharp turns, the narrow parking spaces that appear to be too skinny for a fit. Just me and the “big deal.” A time or two or twenty, we hit the road to go for a spin so she won’t feel so foreign in real time.
Pre-living, for the record, is not the same as doomsday prepping. Neither is it exactly like dress rehearsing. Or trouble borrowing. Or some sort of aversion therapy though the conditioning piece applies. Pre-living is “what if” reckoning. A way of getting some reps at the amorphous, daunting unknown.
When my kids were young, the first day of school was a hairy monster scratching on windows and lurking at the edge of the driveway. The frightful morning I’d have to dress my offspring, feed them and hand them over to the world was a mini movie that cued itself, randomly running when I’d take off on a jog or jump in the shower or be putting laundry away. I lived it over and over before I had to. I suppose to make sure I could.
As the kids grew older, I rode with all kinds of upcoming rites of passage in the twilight before they were real. Proms, play-off games, college applications…then the biggie—graduation. I built up my endurance like a runner training for Boston. My heart put in the time. Then, when the moment finally happened--whatever shape it arrived in—I knew we could get along.
“Big deals” aren’t always attached to the hip of my children (though when the kids were little, it seemed like almost every deal was big). Sometimes the terrifying stranger is an impending re-location or an event or a new job or a diagnosis. A couple of weeks ago at a doctor’s appointment to address an old injury (the kind that simply refuses to go quietly away) I didn’t get the verdict that I wanted. The news, however, didn’t faze me. What I’d danced with in the 30 minutes between the x-rays and the doctor talking, made his diagnosis feel almost like a gift. My foray into the future built a bed I could tumble into. It smelled of sweet relief.
What pre-livers create in the futuristic land of make-believe are opportunities for both pleasant surprises and disappointing letdowns. The bad that we envision has great odds of being not so bad, but the good can sometimes have a hard time living up. This Russian roulette does not, however, deter us. As Milton said, “the mind is its own place.” So we exercise our right to traipse through our respective versions of heaven and hell (we like to cover all our bases). Like the boy scouts, those of us who wade in possibility love to live prepared.
Retrieved from https://siwellroad.com/the-boy-scout-motto/
Pre-living is purposeful because it helps us do what’s hard before we have to do it. (At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m trying to turn the habit into an admirable character trait.) It helps me consider options, play out scenarios, try on different hats for size. It makes me feel like I’m doing due diligence. “I can do it if it happens this way.” “I can do it if it happens that way.” It’s like a parlor game. Mostly fun. Sometimes enlightening. Occasionally kind of scary. Something for my brain and heart to engage in while I’m waiting to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my hands and my feet.
I used to envy, a bit, the mother who didn’t shed a tear as she ushered her children across thresholds. The one who was happy to drop off her mini-me at kindergarten, eager to be on her way. She, who also whooped and hollered at high school graduation and couldn’t wait to turn the adolescent cave down the hall into a workout room, is an anomaly to me. A superhero of sorts wearing an invisible cape. But clearly not a pre-liver. She’s a cross-the-bridge-when-you-get-to-it girl. A proud card-carrying member of the “What Happens Happens” club. She and I go through the world in different ways.
The Pre-Liver Cult of which I’m a disciple prefers to be there before we get there. We can be found building parts for her bridges on the opposite side of the street.
Pre-living is sweaty, roll-your-sleeves-up kind of work, even though it’s effort screwed into a cloud. But, we members of the cult don’t mind. We wrestle and toil not to predict or sear an expectation but to be ready when whatever’s bound to be finally is. It’s our way of being useful if only to ourselves.
P.S. Next Thing You Know