Among the plethora of button-pushing statements to set me off is, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” No. Shit. The sentiment behind it? Okay, sure, don’t drag yesterday’s baggage into today. Yet who among us feels wise enough to know every single one of the elements from the past which represent baggage (versus valuable life-informing lessons)? I’m a Jacob Marley sort. I drag a long, long chain of emotional bondage behind me, all the little boxes filled with guilt, remorse, sorrow, and pain. I’ve been blessed/cursed with an excellent memory so all of that stuff remains instantly retrievable. (My family: “How do you remember all of that?”) I’ve been blessed/cursed with an exactitude which drives me to excel and drives me to repel. And I’ve been taught by my father to dwell on failure, hold it close, never let go, and fixate on the darkness behind instead of the light ahead. This works especially well if one can punish oneself for some splitting-hair issue which no one else can perceive.
With that in mind, it’s perplexing how much of an optimist I am, and to that end, over the past week or so I’ve felt yet another “new” beginning in my life. Maybe it’s caused by looking ahead 70 days to the eve of my 70th birthday. (Huh. That’s numerical coolness right there!) More likely it’s just the relief of warmer temperatures coming to join the much longer, much brighter days. Whatever. I feel the same soul-searching and goal-setting vibes as I do at the beginning of Advent or the New Year. I’m getting in shape! I’m rededicating myself to my scriptural studies! I’m planning a cool getaway that’s been on the books for over a year! I’m getting back to writing more, photographing more, and posting it all here! Yes! Yes! It could happen!!
Perspective says, “No, you know it won’t happen that way. You’re going to light a birthday-cake’s worth of hope-candles which will be snuffed out quickly in the winds of your ever-changing mind and the vagaries of life. You’ll move on. You’ll declare a New Normal. You’ll dive, you’ll soar. It will be Life As Usual.”
Okay then. I’m leaning into life as usual, but I’m redefining usual! So there, Perspective!
And speaking of perspective, this last thought: I recently told a friend in his mid-80s that I had been dwelling on “how much time do I have left” and it saddened me that I had so little time remaining to study the underlying scholarship to the Bible. His immediate reaction: “Why would you do that!” He noted I likely wasn’t ready to pursue the studies until I did. Generalizing from there: one does what one does when one does it. Would I have had a different life if I had listened to my inner voice of reason in 1992 and said, “no, I’m not moving to Philadelphia just to pursue a fling with a young woman?” Sure. Your life flows through the geology of existence, creating a channel called My Life. I’ve tried to choose the most natural, easiest path on the theory it represents what’s best for me at that time. It led to many wonderful things, but I can’t say any one decision made differently wouldn’t have led to many other wonderful things.
Perspective–it’s a bitch. That’s why old folks are so bitchy–we have more perspective.
all the voices in my head 