Things Seem A Little Too Quiet!

My days are quieter and less frantic now. I find this new state of mind a little strange and maybe I am a little suspicious even now that all of this is too good to be true. Where is the punch line? When will someone say to me, "Hey Buddy, the jokes on you." But, since I haven't heard any other shoes dropping in a long time, maybe all this is real.

I find it even stranger that I am having trouble remembering what it felt like to live in a life that was chaotic and that always seemed to be just one step away from falling completely apart. The bad memories, the painful memories, the depression... I can't remember what that felt like anymore. Was all that real? Did I dream it? I know I didn't, but I ask myself these questions anyway.

Life is better now. I need to simply just accept the good times with appreciation and with grace. I know that this is just a lull before some distant storm in my life, so I had better enjoy this state of affairs while I can. Strange or not, I like it. I like it a lot.

Postscript:

And Now For Something Entirely Different...

Tonight I saw a show on Frank Loesser, the Broadway composer and lyricist. He was known to have mentored many of the up and coming talents among the Broadway composers. He let them know that he recognized very special talent in them. And after they had worked with him for awhile, they were able to see that in themselves as well. A little sadly, I wish that I would have had such a mentor. I did not. But if I had, I suspect that I wouldn't be harboring just a little disappointment about how my life has turned out. My life is not bad or awful by any means. But I would have liked to have been more than I turned out to be.

Now I Get It!

When I was younger, I thought nothing of rushing headlong into the unknown future to see where it would take me. If I was going into unknown territory, which happened a lot, I didn't always give a lot of thought to the pitfalls or dangers which may lie ahead. In some cases, I just had not lived long enough to have to experience that should have given me a hint that I was heading into danger. Nor had I taken the time to learn from those who had gone before me.

These days, I proceed at a slower pace. Now I know a few things I did not know before. I know myself better. I understand a lot better about how the world works and about the sorts of people who are out there. I give some thought now to what I ought to do next and make sure I have a plan... and that I have the resources I will need to carry out the plan. And now, I have a better sense of what works and what usually does not work in given situations.

Now I know that it doesn't do me any good to get impatient, to set a recklessly fast pace for myself and, as a result, to risk making avoidable mistakes or to be blindsided. It makes no sense for me to set myself for failure unnecessarily.

Also, all the positive thinking and mindless optimism in the world is not going to bring me success in and of itself. Neither do I want to be paranoid and fearful about what the future holds for me. To navigate the days and weeks ahead, I now realize it s really about preparing myself as best as I can for the confrontations I can anticipate. I will need to have worked through the numbers and whatever I am trying to accomplish, I need to do it as right and as smart as I can.

For me the path ahead isn't as mysterious as it used to be. Nor is it that much easier to travel. Nor is the future something that I should have a debilitating fear about. Experience has taught me about the strategies I can employ to grow the plan and to carry the plan out successfully, all other things being equal. I am now able to proceed with a hard-won confidence and with the sense that these days my chances of succeeding are a probably better than they were in the past.

I have learned to pick my battles carefully and I make sure I prepare properly. Neither of these notions is rocket science. They are just plain common sense ideas. In the past, for various reasons, I didn't get it. Now I do and the fact that I do is making all the difference in the world.

Souvenirs

Sometimes the iconic things in our life cease to be so funny, charming or pleasantly memorable. A photo on the shelf. A username we coined in jest at a certain point in the past, to capture the moment. Some random object we have kept which triggers a memory of a special time and place in our lives or of a special person.

I move on every day. I change. I grow. My take on the world and on the people who fill my small corner of the world has evolved with each new experience and each new revelation. Occasionally I discover that those things and people I hold dear are not exactly what they seem to be or that I no longer feel the same way about the events or situations that created the original memory... that they are a bit less that I originally estimated them to be. When I do, I feel a pang of disappointment and perhaps loss, because my world has been diminished if only by a small degree. The only true constant in life is change and some changes take from us things we treasure. But by now I should no longer be surprised that some of the things I value may lose their luster over time. It is simply a part of life that this will happen to us.

Very soon, I am going to take one of these iconic souvenirs of my life "off the shelf" and put it away, out of sight. Eventually, I will probably just trash it, because it is one of those things which no one else will want. However, I am not quite ready to do that just yet. I am still holding on to the memories of moments past.

You see, no matter how sad or painful something that happened to me in the past appears to be, now that the realities of that situation are clear to me, I cannot forget that there were some wonderful, unforgettable moments also. I still think about those moments, though not so often as in the past. Such moments in time are precious and rare. Well... maybe I will leave this object on the shelf a little while longer. Even bittersweet memories are important.

Evolving Realities

Nothing ever stays the same in this world. The realities which define the boundaries of lives are no exception. The realities that define our lives are constantly evolving and morphing into into successfully different forms during our entire lives.

Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. As people we also evolve and change. When the realities of our lives do change, the context in which we live each day will change. We grow as a person and because of our experiences and the bits of wisdom we pick up along the way, we become a somewhat different person. We still retain the essence of who we are. However with each alteration, we refine our lives or are pushed in a direction in which we were not intending to go. However neither is change necessarily a good thing. Sometimes the situations which we must confront make us weaker or sadder or have the potential to damage some aspect of who we are. Unfortunately, our lives do not come with a guarantee for a happy ending.

However, whether these changes bode good or ill for us, we must somehow respond to changes and make adjustments to our lives. Our personal realities will have changed before we are fully aware that it has happened to us. After we have become aware that our "world" has changed either subtly or immensely, we have to make mid-course adjustments in our behavior, in our thinking, in our actions and in our understanding of how the world works for us. We will have to do this a thousand times in our journey through our lives.

Most of the time, our lives will evolve in a pretty predictable way. For most of us, our lives are not extraordinary lives, in the sense that we will ever bask for very long in the spotlight. For most of us, our lives will be filled with what passes for a normal existence. We will be born, spend time growing up and receive our educations. We will find a soul mate and create a connection to that person. We may have children and raise them. And when we have done that, to enjoy the later years of our lives. We will have careers that will be a parallel journey we will also make. But for the most part, there are more commonalities to our lives than substantial differences.

There is that other possibility. We can choose not to make the necessary adjustments. We can refuse to accept reality and attempt to live in a world that we want to exist, but which no longer exists or which never existed at all. When we choose to do that, we get stuck in place and cannot move on. We end up risking damage to ourselves and to our relationships with the people about whom we care a great deal. We can become angry, embittered, depressed and frustrated that our lives are not working out as we want them to. We are trying to impose our sense of how the world should work on a world that doesn't care a bit about what we think about that subject. And we will suffer because we hold fast to illusions about the realities of our existence. We will pay a fearful price for doing that.

There is a natural pattern to life. First our lives will change and the realities of our life will have changed. In time, we can choose to recognize that those changes have taken place and make adjustments. We can choose not to do that. But like it or not, the context of our lives is going to change over time, and we will have to reinvent ourselves somewhat every time that happens, so that we can continue to be productive human beings and to move on to what happens to us next in this new environment that change brings. That particular reality is unchanging and etched in stone.