One Lifetime Is Not Enough

“When I was little, I never left Pennsylvania. I used to have fantasies about things that I thought were happening in the Midwest, or down South, or Texas. I felt I was missing out. But you can only live in one place at a time and your own life, while it’s happening to you, never has any atmosphere until it’s a memory.” - Andy Warhol

When we were growing up, my brother and I got in the newspaper business. We wrote stories on an old Macintosh computer and printed copies in the basement to distribute among our friends. The name of the paper was Bro Weekly, the result of a long and fruitless brainstorming session. For a few months, we ran around as journalists, photographers, editors, and delivery boys until the newspaper lost its allure to some new mania. 

There was always something new. We started a spy agency, a film studio, and a writing club, even though there were never more than two members. We took to stargazing and bug collecting, and drafted plans for impossible flying machines. Fifteen years later, and not much has changed. Life in all its variations remains intoxicatingly beautiful to me, and I am greedy for all of it. 

I want to be a private detective in San Francisco. I want to be a lobster fisherman in Maine and watch the sun set over the ocean. I want to be an interior designer, chimney sweep, and jewel thief. Of course, it is the romantic images that attract me rather than the daily processes involved in these jobs, but a wistful sadness still haunts me when I think I won’t be able to do them all.

I want to be Bono, Salvador Dali, John Dillinger, my grandpa, and Billy Graham all rolled into one. One lifetime is not enough – I want every iteration.

But every iteration is impossible. Being fairly broke, I miss out on the decadent and exclusive world of Beautiful People with their Chanel boots and Mediterranean yachts. But to be rich would mean losing the Bohemian ideal, walking the streets of Paris as a starving artist or riding the rails as a carefree hobo with his faithful dog.

Like chess, the decisions we make limit future decisions, and what once was an endless array of forking paths, begin to narrow. Saying “I do” to one woman means saying “I don’t" to the rest. Commitment is a terrifying thing for one who wants everything. But lack of commitment is its own commitment. Instead of choosing one’s sacrifice, the decision gets made for you. What could have been a life fully committed to specificity becomes a vague undeveloped nothingness. To not say “I do” to a spouse means to say “I do” to singleness, no marriage, no children, no family. 

It’s a terrifying thing to make commitments that limit one’s life, especially without seeing in advance how they will play out. But the alternative of trying to have it all and ending up with nothing, is worse. 

I want to be Bono, but sometimes I wonder if he wants to be me – the simplicity and anonymity of the life I have, the youth I have. I know I should enjoy this. Every stage of life has its own blessings and trials. I should focus on the magic and joy of each moment rather than the pain or struggle. I should not be perpetually hoping for the next season of life to save me from this one.

The specificity of my particular life means I don’t have any other iteration, or the full cacophony I want. But my job is not to live every iteration, or to only make choices that don’t reduce the subsequent choices I can make. My job is to live my life – the one iteration I have – as honestly and deeply as I can.

J.

Dec. 17, 2020