What can happen in a second?

Life and death.  As I grow older, I find myself more and more considering the deep issues of life and death, so it comes as no surprise to me that my first post would be about life and death.

I am uncomfortable with the idea of death.  I analyze things.  I generally won't make a move in life without considering multiple outcomes.  This is probably the reason I still live in the town I grew up in, all the homes I've ever lived in are within a 30 mile radius, and the very thought of going somewhere, out there, with out a significant network of people I can depend on still terrifies me.  I often think of "getting the hell out of dodge", but for some reason or another, I never do.  "What if I can't find a job?" "What if I can't provide for my family?" "I'm not sure I have any marketable skills."  "What if we end up homeless?"  This is the crap that runs through my head when I think about making a change.  And that is why death is so utterly effing terrifying to me.  It's the ultimate change.

I like to think of the exchange in the movie Hook.  Hook tells Pan, "Prepare to die, Peter Pan" to which Pan replies, "To die would be great adventure."  Hook responds, "Death is the only adventure."  As much as I want to think of death as an adventure, I can't...

So, Martha and I pick a really cool writing assignment, and what do I do?  I go all Emo Kid right away.  Brilliant, Ryan. Brilliant.  So what do you say we try this again, huh?

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What can happen in a second?

I figure I can answer this question one of two ways.  I can either make a list of things I can think of that can happen in one second OR I can write about one particular event that happened in one second.  I think I'll do the latter, but instead of just one particular event, I think I'll write about two because I'm having a bit of a hard time not being super serious when I think of just one.  So one serious, one not so much.

THE SERIOUS

It was a warm summer afternoon.  She had picked me up from work and we drove to a nearby park.  She pulled out her Blackberry and dialed seven digits.  Those seven digits were the most important numbers either one of us had ever dialed.  Those seven digits held all the hope, all the fears, all the hours of crying, praying, believing, and being disappointed. 

My heart threatened to rip through my chest.

"Hi.  This is Martha Navarro.  I'm calling to speak to Kori."

I could barely breathe.  We sat there, silent, barely breathing.  I held her hand.

"Hi Kori, it's Martha.  I'm going to put Ryan on the phone because I want you to tell him, and then he'll come tell me.  Okay, here he is."

I took the phone and pressed it to my ear as she opened the door of the truck.

"Hi Kori, it's Ryan."

"Hi Ryan. Is Martha gone?"

"Yeah, she just got out of the car and is walking away."

"Well, go and give her a big ol' hug..."

This was it. Six years of heartbreak and disappoint culminated in one instant.

"...because you're going to be a daddy."

One second...


THE NOT SO SERIOUS

Throwing away a paper.  How hard can it be, right?  Pull open the door to the restroom, let it swing wide while you toss the paper in the basket, and walk away.  If the door hits you in the back ever so lightly, no big deal, right?

Only, it is a big deal when the doorknob-that-is-way-too-fancy-to-be-in-a-pizza-hut decides to swing down right as the door hits your back, wrapping your favorite Adidas T-shirt through your beltloop creating a knot even Houdini couldn't get out of.  One second.  One second is all it took to stick me to that door like a Jolly Rancher in the sun on a hot August afternoon.  One second to get stuck...

And thirty minutes to get unstuck.  Mostly because for the first fifteen minutes, no one could stop laughing long enough to help me.  So there you have it.  In one second you can get stuck to a bathroom doorknob in a Pizza Hut in Farmington, New Mexico.