III

The average life expectancy for humans throughout our history has of course varied. In the year 1300 in England, it was about thirty years. I'm sure that in even more primitive times, it was less.

I was shredding "important" documents the other day in an effort to thin out the sheer volume of crap I will have to haul with me to California next month when I noticed that there were no documents prior to 1980.  That is the year I got my job at the phone company--the one I stuck with for thirty years, during which time I married, had a kid, bought houses, cars, and did all the other things you do when you plug yourself into the Golden Age American myth. When my wife passed (a brief battle with a very aggressive cancer) and my son grew up and himself moved out of town, (Seattle!) I found myself adrift, and spent a couple years trying to keep myself vertical in all the bobbing around, and figure out the proper thing to do at this point.

This is when I decided to move to California. That's where I'm from, the too-expensive Bay Area, which is so expensive I understand I can't move back there, but close, and I zeroed in on Chico, in the north end of the valley.

But to get back to the shredding, why were there no documents prior to 1980? It is because that was another life. During those thirty years, I was born, grew a little and then was a kid running around in eternal summers between school years, then working after school--I had 22 jobs before 1980. I loved it. But it was another life, and a very much simpler one, hence the lack of documentation. I don't remember, but I'm sure I just threw everything away, or it didn't survive one of my moves.

I have lived two lives, then, I figure, each of a duration about the same as the average human life expectancy throughout history. When the second one was over, it caught me by surprise--one day I looked around, realized it, and thought to myself, you still here? It's like you're at a party, but the party's over and everyone's gone, but you're still kind of hanging around, and you think, oh, I guess I better leave. So. This is why, in a very real way, I feel like I'm starting a new life. Such a cliche, but, you know, they don't call 'em cliches for nothin'.