Life is Like a Popsicle, Man

I think I am jealous of Forrest Gump. To be able to be so unaware is a feat in itself. However, to be sort of simple and unaware yet find yourself partaking in and even making history at so many different junctures throughout your life is remarkable. I think that deep down most people want to be a hero. Forrest just seemed to stumble upon heroism and success, yet his simplicity kept him from being corrupted by any of it. And his level of faith was amazing as well. Whatever his momma said, that was enough for him. He could easily filter his existence through her words of wisdom. Who can forget “Life is like a box of chocolates…”? I know I can’t. So, I came up with my own catch-phrase:

I think that life is like a Popsicle.

Before I met my wife, I was truly unaware of what it meant to savor food. I guess I must have been a bit like a ravenous wolf or something, but whenever I had a chocolate bar, I usually ate the whole thing; ditto with chips or deserts or ice cream Blizzards from Dairy Queen. Not so with my wife. She could turn even the smallest treat into a journey into a land of milk and honey. And I do mean a journey. I remember how surprised I was the first time she bought a chocolate bar, “hmm’ed” and “yum’ed” over one square and then put the rest away to save for another day. This was completely off my radar. I mean, it wasn’t even a family size bar or anything (which I have been known to knock off in one sitting anyway). It was just a normal-sized bar. I had never failed to finish a normal chocolate bar in more than 10 minutes. Yet she made it last for months. When we moved to Thailand, it got even worse. Now we were talking about tastes that were from Home and that she wouldn’t be able to have again for months on end. Suddenly we had bits of all sorts of things in our refrigerator.

However, some things don’t keep as well as others. She couldn’t finish a Dairy Queen blizzard to save her life and sometimes she would even save parts of Popsicles in our freezer. It actually became a bit of a point of contention between us. I figured that she forgot about many of these treats that she had saved for herself. My general rule was that if it had been in the fridge for more than 2 weeks it was fair game. Not so much. She would eventually remember the treat or (more likely) it was missing from her usual scenery. Then I was in trouble. I remember one time opening our freezer and finding all of these odds and ends of frozen deserts like an ice cream truck graveyard. I decided to liberate some of these treasures, only to find that they were no longer worth eating. The Popsicles had a bad case of freezer burn coupled with a minor snow build-up and the Blizzards had turn to some kind of chemical-and-sugar goo. It would seem that Popsicles are just not meant to be stored over long periods of time.

And thus begins my metaphor. Life is like a Popsicle, man. (I don’t know why I put the “man” in there – it just made it seem more contemplative, I guess – like you are getting advice from your hip older cousin who has traveled a lot or something.) A Popsicle is packed full of sweet flavor and is a wonderful treat on a hot summer day. It will cool you down and pick you up. I love to have Popsicles all the time (that should satisfy our sponsors – this post, by the way, is brought to you in part by Nestle™).

Popsicles are not, in my opinion, something that is meant to be kept and hoarded so that they can be experienced over a long time period. Popsicles are meant to be enjoyed in the moment. In fact, if you start to enjoy one and then get distracted by other things, it will melt and you will miss your chance. Trying to save part of one for later is like trying to rehash an old inside joke or horde manna – it is just not the same the second or third (or in my wife’s case fifth or sixth) time. Life is much the same. It is fleeting and transient. There are so many wonderful moments to be treasured and savored. Yet, when we cling to these times, it is like trying to keep them in the freezer for later. It’s never quite the same as when we experienced it the first time.

We can get stuck always living in the past or even in the future and miss out on the “now”. We won’t have this moment ever again. Sometimes I get into a mentality of living for the weekend. All through my work week I am looking forward to Friday night – when I can really begin to live. That means that I am spending almost three quarters of my life wishing I was in a different time and place. I can’t wait to get into that freezer and check out last weekend’s Popsicle. Like Pascal said, “We are never living, but always hoping to live.”

Sometimes it seems we are just too busy. We are like the 5 year old who sits mesmerized by his favorite cartoon while his Popsicle slowly runs down his sticky hands. We are caught up in things that are keeping us from realizing the happiness that is right within our grasp. We can’t focus on life’s simple joys because we are too busy running from one thing to another. By the time we make time for these little treasures, the moment is gone and we feel vaguely sticky and disappointed.

Or we take the more adult approach and drop it in the freezer for later. How many people in our lives feel that we have put them aside because we don’t have the time to enjoy them now? What are we communicating when there is always a more pressing need than being with those who are important in our lives? It’s true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but a well-maintained wheel doesn’t get squeaky. When we finally do go back to the freezer and try to spend time with these people later, we wonder why they are so “frosty”. In some cases, like freezer burn they just can’t be restored again.

We never know how long we have to spend with the people who matter to us. I recently reconnected with a friend right as he was in the middle of his young wife’s battle with cancer. They are the same age as my wife and I. She passed away after a courageous fight with the disease before they could celebrate ten years of marriage. We all have only a season on Earth and only God knows the number of our days. As John Lennon put it, “Life is what happens as we are making other plans”.

Finally, Popsicles are meant to be enjoyed in hot seasons. The average person doesn’t look to enjoy a Popsicle in subzero weather. Popsicles are for summer in the same way that hot chocolate is for winter. I am a summer man through and through. In fact, one of the numerous reasons that I moved to Thailand was because I couldn’t stand the unpredictable snows of my hometown in Canada anymore. I spent a lot of winters wishing for the snow to melt and for spring to usher in a new summer. When I moved to Thailand in a place that ranges from warm to dripping, sweaty hot, I missed some of the pleasures of the other seasons. Each season has its own joys. Autumn has its bright-colored leaves and crisp air, winter its hushed landscapes muted by soft-falling snow, spring its newness and life-giving rains and summer its fruitfulness and long days of outdoor revelry. I’m sure for each season you could add your own personal enjoyments to the list.

Life can’t be all summer. Even in Thailand which is close to the equator, there are cool and rainy seasons. The color on the canvas of life is in the changing of the seasons. We have happy seasons and sad ones, mountaintop seasons and valley experiences, times of famine and of feasting. Sometimes everything flows easily and other times it seems as if every day we are just trying to keep our heads above the water. Yet, in every season there are joys to be found. Even in the most difficult times we can find gold being minted into our character. We can come out stronger and more capable than before. We always savor the Popsicles of summer, but we can look beyond the loneliness of winter to its own beauty and the hope of an eventual spring.

So, I have my Forrest Gump-esque catch phrase. Life is like a Popsicle, man…” Now, I wonder if that will lead to meeting a few presidents, becoming a war hero, ping pong champion and multi-millionaire. Probably not, but then again I guess I can never fully know what path my life might take. In the end I guess the most important thing is to take time to “stop and lick the Popsicles” as it were and leave the freezer options in life to others.

Ben is blessed to work with an excellent team at The Bridge. He particularly values how God has called them all to walk closely together in this season. "Together we stand an will not fall".