Made It

I was just completing the always challenging process of transferring from her car seat to my wheelchair when I said “I made it.” She heard me. Teasingly, she said that would be a good epitaph on my tombstone. That seemed right to me, so right, that it stuck in my head, and now is begging me to use this Slow Lane piece to reflect upon it. I can imagine those simple words being the last I speak. “I made it!”

 

Each life is a creation. It is the sum of all the responses had to its many challenges. When it is all over, I will relish the end point I have reached. In the last seconds, I imagine I will have a chance to look at the whole of it, and see what I have wrought. I hope I can say to myself that I have completed this course with a certain amount of aplomb. Just as transferring never held certainty, this process of living has been an uncertain, and sometimes treacherous, undertaking.

 

‘Made it’ has two meanings for me. Both of them telling. I went through everything that was allotted to me. I found my way to the presumed finish line. I am spent. And, I’ve created a wake, the vapor trail of a life, a momentary house of cards. It is the sum of having been.  It is whatever artistry I was able to muster. I made it. My death-moment assessment, of my time here, will in some way be tied to this fading presence.

 

I’m not particularly worried about how that moment will play out. I think mainly, like when my unbalanced and disabled movements come to a resting place, I’ll be relieved. The finish line gives meaning, by bringing an end to the effort involved.

‘Made it,’ is also a celebration of accomplishment, the acknowledgement of a period of initiation, the final step.  For me, my recent life of imbalance is over. And, what it has drawn out of me, is briefly evident.

 

‘Made it’ reassures me. I’m not sure why. I guess I long for the barn. There is something about a prolonged effort that is both productive and confining. I want the freedom of an ending, the mortality of being mortal. I guess I would rather be a brief thread of color on the loom of creation, than be the loom itself. I could never keep my weft and my warp clear anyhow.

 

I don’t know if anything comes next. It seems to me, that this life has prepared me for something, but I’m ready to be surprised by what it is. What I know is, that I want a sense of accomplishment out of this one. ‘Made it’ carries with it a sense of achievement that I like. It isn’t a merit badge I seek, but it is the sense that I’ve made it through the birth canal of this experience.

 

With that comment, I’ve made it through this reflection. By now, I think you can see, that the Slow Lane is a deeply human endeavor with all of its flaws, ego aggrandizement, and wonder — evident like errant underwear. I hope it isn’t too shamelessly revealing for you.