One Way or Another

Previously unpublished essay

One gray, rainy Friday in November, in the middle of cleaning out my upstairs hall closet, I had a small epiphany as I tossed out a handful of red Christmas candles—now faded to a mottled, oily pink.

“I am powerless over scented wax, and my shelves have become unmanageable.”

For those not as intimately familiar with the inner workings of Alcoholics Anonymous as I am, this was a shameless—but necessary—appropriation of what is called the “first step” in AA. It’s about admitting you have a problem. As I surveyed the wreckage of my newly-disgorged closet arrayed about me on the upstairs landing, it was difficult to deny that I did.

I mean, come on. If the now-defunct Pier One Imports ever decided to reopen? Brother, I have all their back stock on hand, ready to go. Just say the word.

Sheesh. This is ridiculous.

Sean came up the stairs with the cat darting ahead of him to see what the commotion was.

“If I ever look like I’m about to buy another candle again, you are to slap it out of my hand!” I implored him.

It was one of those rare times when he didn’t even call me “silly.” He just put a hand on his hip in his best I’m-a-little-teapot pose, pursed his lips, and nodded—before retreating silently back down to the den. The cat stayed behind to sniff suspiciously at the pile of patchouli incense sticks that I’d accidentally knocked to the floor while cleaning the top shelf.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I never clean a closet unless I’m desperate for a distraction.

Believe me, at this point in my life, I was.

* * *

It was about 7 weeks since I’d left my outpatient family medical practice after nearly 25 years. The initial euphoria of being free of any commitments had given way to a vague existential dread. I had spent the bulk of my adult life with a daily schedule, things to do, people to attend, demands to be met, paperwork to be completed.

Now my biggest decision was whether to keep the little pumpkin candle my aunt had bought us as a housewarming gift twenty years ago.

A break to clear my head was in order.

I headed downstairs, grabbed my keys off the pegboard in the entryway, and went out to get the mail. As I walked down the driveway to the mailbox, a thought occurred to me:

I’m too old to be young and too young to feel old.

Yeah. That’s it. I’m a man with too much life ahead to retire inward—and yet too much life behind to pretend I’m the same person I once was.

As the late, great actor—and my personal spirit animal—Leslie Jordan might have said:

“Well, shit… ”

I pulled the mail out and sorted through it on the way back to the house. As usual, it was clear that for the most part the US Postal Service had devolved into the most efficient garbage delivery service on the planet. Among the items were an ad circular for a local vape shop touting their selection of CBD and Delta-8-THC wares.

Good lord and butter, how in the world do I end up on these mailing lists?

A-ha! An ad for a medical staffing company!

It seems they were advertising for a job position in… West Texas.

Never mind.

In the trash…

The only substantial piece of mail remaining was a large brown envelope that clearly held a book. For a second I was puzzled.

I set the rest of the mail aside and tore it open to reveal… a 1972 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cookbook.

My original copy had long since disappeared, most likely in one of my mother’s garage sale frenzies where EVERYTHING MUST GO! So, in a fit of nostalgia the previous week, I’d found it listed on some sort of vintage bookseller website and purchased it on a whim.

This was the cookbook my Aunt Carol had bought for me in the long-ago year of 1977—and my first. In hindsight, it was my aunt’s tacit admission that her nephew was never likely to make quarterback on the football team, but could make a mean batch of walnut penuche.

Something about the transition I was in had really made me sentimental and this was a little piece of my childhood I wanted to see again. I plopped down on the couch next to the cat and began to leaf through it.

The recipes were ridiculously simple for obvious reasons. One in particular was called “Circus Time Lemonade.” I’ll sum up the recipe for you thusly:

• Ask your mom to buy a 6-ounce can of frozen lemonade.

• Prepare it according to package directions.

• Add ice and serve.

Left out of the “recipe” was any indication of where the “circus” entered into the mix—although I did feel like a bit of a clown for blowing seven bucks on a cookbook obviously aimed at ten-year-old girls in the 1970s. I’d forgotten how jarringly sexist the world could be back then.

But, I gotta say—this was a recipe I thought I could handle—except my now eighty-one-year-old mother was currently at home laid up with gout, so it would be a few days before her tootsies were in any condition to ply the aisles of Kroger to buy her fifty-seven-year-old possibly retired doctor son a can of Minute Maid.

Here was another: “Molded Fruit Salad.”

I’d cleaned out the refrigerator the other day and found that very dish way in the back on the top shelf. It was lurking behind the six miniature jars of Harry and David honey mustard we never get around to using. Somehow, I don’t think this was the kind of “molded” the book was referring to, though.

Next up, “Lunch Box Heroes.”

For the love of god, it was a “recipe” on how to make a damned sandwich. No exaggeration. Ingredients were French bread rolls, sliced lunch meat, Swiss cheese and mayo. Yep, think I could have figured that out without a book.

Oh, and bonus points to all you Gen-X types reading this who started singing the recipe title to the tune of Foreigner’s hit song Juke Box Hero. You’re one of my tribe.

Could I have ever been so young once that this book was that useful and important to me? It seemed the answer was yes. Something about waltzing down memory lane distorts reality in the mind’s eye—like looking back over the decades through a camera obscura.

Still, it was fun to peruse this old book—and I did find a recipe for Boston Cream Pie that my mother once helped me make. The kitchen looked like the aftermath of an explosion at a Pillsbury factory, and the top cake layer slid off to one side a bit on the pudding-filled middle, but it tasted wonderful and Mom declared it a success.

Oh well…back to cleaning out that closet.

* * *

I finished sorting through everything I’d pulled off the shelves…old candles, centerpieces, table runners, you name it. It was like taking inventory in a museum of domestic life. Each piece held memories.

There were the napkin rings I’d used for Thanksgiving dinner in our new home back in 2004. It had been scarcely a month since we’d moved in and my mother and stepfather had come down to visit us. It was the first time I’d ever hosted Thanksgiving dinner on my own. I cannot remember how the dinner turned out—fine, I suppose—but I do remember the light fairy-tale dusting of snow that unexpectedly fell that afternoon as I tended to the turkey and chatted with Sean and my folks.

Next, a box of “drink charms” that had gotten tossed into my bag at Pottery Barn one time free with a purchase I’d made. Damned if I knew what I’d ever do with these, but they looked too cute to throw away.

Wow. The little glass icicles that had been a standard decoration on our family Christmas tree since I was old enough to remember. Mother had long since quit using them, but she knew I liked them and gave them to me to keep. Half were useless now—the little string loops they hung from had dry-rotted away.

They’re still wrapped in the same roll of cotton batting they always have been, probably since she’d first bought them in the long ago days of the early 70s—and I simply couldn’t bear to throw them out.

Finally, I finished loading everything back onto the shelves and hauled two fully loaded garbage bags of half-used candles and various assorted decorative ephemera to the dumpster. I could have thrown more out, but I’d parted with all my heart would allow.

Why was this so hard?

* * *

I think it’s because I’m living in the middle at the moment. Not mid-life per se. I mean, come on. I’m fifty-seven. I’m only in my “mid-life” if I plan on living to 114.

But in the middle of life, for sure.

I’m too old to be young anymore. I’m not hustling through my medical residency, building a practice, forming my identity, proving myself, taking on every opportunity that comes my way for fear I’ll miss my chance—pretending I have unlimited time. I’m past that point now.

I’ve lived enough life to know what fits and what doesn’t. I’ve earned a kind of wisdom that comes with being done with certain roads.

But… I’m too young to be old as well. I still have energy, humor, curiosity, creativity, purpose, physical health, a long runway of years ahead of me, things I still want to do—new paths calling my name. I don’t feel like winding down. I feel like winding around.

I’m shifting directions, not shutting down. I’ve had a lot of birthdays, but I feel too alive to be “old.”

So which way do I go? It brings to mind the title of the old song by Blondie.

One Way or Another.

Exactly. I’m in this weird liminal space of life, standing in a doorway between what was and what will be.

The urge to begin again… but a desire to rest.

The energy to create… but a wish to simplify.

The vitality of youth… with the perspective of age.

The fear of endings… and the excitement of beginnings.

It’s confusing. It’s powerful. It’s disorienting.

But… it’s also beautiful.

One way or another.