Countdown Clock of Life: The Day a Milestone Became a Mile Marker

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Some of the most profound thoughts don’t arrive loudly. They don’t crash in or demand attention.

They just show up one day, settle into a corner of your mind, daring you to ignore them.

This one started that way, standing leaning on the rail of a cruise ship looking out at the grey, persistent drizzle of Sitka, Alaska.

Even though it was late June, the cold rain fell steadily—that steady drumming pulse as if to say, "You are welcome here, but today you have to work for it."

For many years, I never really thought about how much of the country I had crossed. People would talk about a city or a landscape, and I’d simply nod.

Yep, been there.

Been there, too.

And there. 

It was just the background noise of a life lived at a breakneck pace.

Then, maybe ten years ago or so, my wife and I were looking at one of those world maps.

She started talking about the places I had been to, and before long, the 48 continental States were completely full.

I hadn't thought much about it up until then.

"Been to them all except for Hawaii and Alaska," I said.

Not long after that, we went to Hawaii—twice. Once to visit a friend who retired, and once for my work.

"Now only Alaska remains," I joked.

For me, it was peripheral, just an empty spot on a map on the wall.

But my wife thought it was a big deal. She even looked up the statistics of how few people actually manage to set foot in all fifty states.

Spoiler alert: not many. She made sure I knew that.

It became a story she wanted to help me finish even if I never asked for it.

She planned this cruise: me, her, and our youngest, all of us together for our first trip to Alaska.

And, on paper, my fiftieth state.

It was cold, grey, and wet when I woke up on the 13th of June.

I was up with a cup of coffee, about an hour after pulling into port, leaning on a railing, looking down into the wet town, and up at the grey skies. Feeling the brisk bite in the air and taking in the scenery.

Not long after, I was walking down the gangway holding my wife’s hand, while she was chatting away about the beauty of the mountains all around us and what was planned for the day.

A short walk down the dock later and I stepped onto the wet soil of Alaska.

The checkbox was technically complete.

Fifty states. All of them.

Boots on the ground, miles on the odometer, dirt from forty-nine other places caked onto the soles of my shoes and faces from all of those places burned into my memories.

My wife hugged me and kissed me while congratulating me for hitting this milestone.

I thought about that for a few minutes. (Milestone.)

The day progressed as they always do. We went on the excursions, took the tours, had lunch, bought souvenirs, marveled at the beauty, and took plenty of pictures.

But later, toward the end of that day in Sitka, I found myself standing in that cold, steady rain.

Just standing there looking up at a totem pole surrounded by that iron-grey sky as the cold, steady drizzle soaked my face.

Staring at a carving of wood that had stood there for several of my lifetimes, silently watching the days, the weeks, the seasons, years, and the people come and go.

Created by hands now long gone, telling a story now ancient history.

There I was, surrounded by three thousand cruise passengers, yet I felt entirely alone in my own head.

This was supposed to be one of those moments. A "get the camera out, we want to remember this forever" memory.

Instead, the internal celebration I expected never arrived. A quiet stillness settled in—a cold silence. I stood there staring at the carved wood in the Alaskan drizzle, and it somehow didn't feel like a triumph.

It felt like another massive chunk of time had simply vanished.

There was of course an immense happiness to be there, to be with my family in such a raw, beautiful place.

But wrapped tightly inside that happiness was a sharp, unbidden sadness.

A realization that so much of the opportunity of this life was already behind me, and what was left was racing by oh so fast.

Standing there in the crowd, realizing that it was time to reboard and move on, a nagging, terrifying whisper echoed in the back of my mind, a question demanding:

"My God," how can I slow this down?

That feeling was dug in; it just kept coming back, refusing to leave.

It wasn't fear. It was the realization that I was powerless to slow it down.

I sat with that for a while, thinking about our obsession with milestones.

We treat them like heavy stone markers lining the highway of our lives—destinations, rites of passage, physical proof that we are moving forward, that we are doing something that matters.

From our first breath, they are woven into the fabric of our lives.

We graduate, we climb corporate ladders, we collect titles, we hit anniversaries, and we buy tokens of success.

Yes, most of them are happy, structured points in time meant to help us break existence into manageable, bite-sized chunks to move toward.

A week later the cruise had ended, and I was back home, sitting in my living room, when the universe decided to reinforce exactly what that cold Alaskan rain had been trying to say that day.

I was there relaxing chatting with my wife and watching our digital photo album cycle through pictures on the table.

There is my granddaughter, being held by my wife when she was just a single day old.

Then she’s one.

Then two.

Then three.

Now, she is turning eight.

It feels like a few weeks ago I was sitting in the bleachers at my grandson’s high school graduation, but he just turned twenty and wrapped up his first year of college.

My other son just packed up his life, moving from Texas to Iowa for a new job.

The seasons aren’t just changing anymore; they are racing by.

The Summer was passing, and over the Fourth of July, I was at a family reunion back in Iowa. I am always happy to see the family.

To see the new babies that have come along, marvel at how fast they grow up, catch up on the changes with everyone.

But I also can't help but notice the empty seats where family once sat just a reunion or two ago.

Later on, as I sat with my mother listening to her talking about her 87th year on this little blue planet coming to a close, and anticipating at least one more trip around the sun as 88 is just around the corner.

She looks very old, very frail now.

For me, the change seems almost instant.

I don't remember the transformation of this woman who ran her own barber shop for decades and used to have a few acres of garden becoming frail and needing to hold onto my arm to walk.

When did this happen?

I look back at the achievements, the resumes, and the titles that seemed so important at the time. Then look around and I realize how utterly fragile the machinery of this life really is.

Family and friends, I have not seen in a while are always curious to catch up.

"How do you like retirement, what do you do all day, what are your plans?" 

They ask because they are looking at retirement through the lens of a schedule. They see it as a milestone of leisure sometime out in the future, "someday".

You know, sitting there listening to Mom, something hit me. The clock that had been moving time forward, had changed into a countdown clock.

When we are young, they mark progress, where we are going and we are happy to add them.

As we age, they change, they become markers of where we have been, and we can look back at them and clearly see how long the path behind us really is.

We have hit almost all of them at some point.

That path that was full of future milestones that were there to guide us toward the future, now seem to mark a path that is much shorter indeed.

Reaching all fifty states was a milestone, one I am grateful for.

It was built by the man who hurried through life at a hundred miles an hour under the heavy weight of a federal career.

Many of those first forty-eight states were crossed under the heavy weight of duty or crammed into the margins of a schedule that demanded every ounce of my focus.

I was always promising myself—the way we all do—"next time."

But there are no reverse milestones. You can't put miles back on the odometer, and you can't buy back the missed birthdays, anniversaries, or missed time with family and friends.

Nostalgia wants me to look back with a wink and a nod, and it would be easy to write about hitting those fifty states as some romantic, completed journey.

But there is a reality check forcing me to evaluate things entirely differently.

The achievement of the 50th state wasn't a "pop the cork" moment.

It was a prompt to stop looking at the shiny "what's next" and focus on what is truly important as life begins to sunset.

I don't know what comes next now that this section of the map is full, after all the world is a big place so there is plenty of empty spaces left to explore.

The engine is idling, but the purpose has shifted. I am no longer trying to hold the world together or save a system that doesn't want to be saved.

I am ready to set out with the sole purpose being to explore and enjoy the moments in the sun, or under the grey skies equally as long as I can with people I love and care about.

I am learning to look at my life without the noise of a career drowning out the silence.

I am appreciating what I have, who I have beside me, and where I have been.

Even on those cold rainy days, where the greyness of the sky blankets the world while the sun still tries to shine through, I am perfectly content not knowing exactly where the road is taking us.

I am working hard to find the strength to give myself the grace needed to be still and accept the gift of new tomorrows.

I write this knowing how truly blessed I am!

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