PaperWork: Starting to realize the biggest change in my life is me

I’ve been wrestling with a virus the past several days.

Yes, wrestling, with me pinned to the mat, tired and weak. I usually bounce back quickly or dodge and weave through sick seasons. That’s been my norm. But that seems to be changing.

So many things are changing. Change. It’s in my head where I’ve been replaying that song, the one where Quincy Jones laments the steamroller we call time.

“Everything must change. Nothing stays the same. Everyone will change. No one stays the same. ...”

No one stays the same. So, so, so true. I see this truth in the mirror each day. Stuff I accept and don’t try to hide anymore. I wonder, where does muscle go? When did it go? I think about building back some of that muscle. But ... something’s different. Something has changed. Now I wonder if it’s too late.

“The young become the old, and mysteries do unfold, ’cause that’s the way of time. Nothing and no one goes unchanged. ...”

That’s the way of time, for sure. I’m well aware. We all know about the final change. The last sunset. Everybody dies – a fact of life I learned long, long ago. When you’re young (when change is more exciting) you don’t dwell on it.

But then you do. Have to think about it. Maybe that’s the change stirring inside me now. I’ve been trudging through that slow, steady acceptance of the inevitable. I can hear myself practicing those words of bravery, “Hey, I’ve lived a good life.”

I have had a good life. I have faced all kinds of change. I didn’t dwell on it. My focus was on the future. But there were reminders. The best ones were reunions.

I attended several high school reunions ... with a small circle of classmates who remained longtime friends. That circle is nearly gone now. And looking back at those reunions I see a slide show of change. My memory of names and faces was riveted to photos in the yearbook and flashbacks of who they were.

But that is not who they were anymore ... after 10, 20, 30 and then 50 years. It’s not who I was anymore. That was an early lesson in growing up, that life is not all about high school. Then college. Or ... dare I say it ... all the places I worked.

No, I cannot honestly say that. Because high school was formative on so many levels. The university even more so. And those years in newsrooms, full of highs and lows, were a rush. A rumble. A thrill ride. An adventure. My journey. My story.

My life was full of change. So much change. So ... much ... change.

So here I sit. Bracing for change. It comes with the force of raging water. I must ride the waves. Maybe I should raise my arms to the sky, shout into the roar and embrace the splash of water in my face. And listen to deeper messages in those lyrics by Benard Ighner:

“There are not many things in life you can be sure of, except rain comes from the clouds, sun lights up the sky, and hummingbirds do fly. Winter turns to spring. A wounded heart will heal, but never much too soon. Yes, everything must change. …”

Everything must change, but life goes on. And on. Even when we do not. And eventually,As we do not. And I’m feeling that press of change more these days.

This past week got tougher with the loss of a friend and former co-worker. He slammed into the big change. Sudden. Shocking to those around him. The moment I read this news my life changed. It was not the first time, of course.

These are the changes now that seem most difficult. Yes, yes, I will be gone someday. But damn, someone should have told me about the hardest part. The part where I watch others disappear. So many, gone too soon.

I am left with good memories but also the promise of more changes to come. As the song says, everything must change.

“I know rain [rain comes from the clouds]. I know sun [sun lights up the sky]. And music makes me cry.”

• Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His PaperWork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail The Times, 110 W. Jefferson St., Ottawa, IL 61350.