When Who We Were Meets Who We Are

I sat in a room by myself and watched a 58 year-old Mike Tyson fight 27 year-old Jake Paul.

I looked to my right and to my left wondering if I would see the ghosts of my grandfather and father sitting with me and remembered watching the fights with them.

Sat there with my eyes closed in between one round and listened for their commentary and remembered being around 10 years-old and how strange it felt to hear my father say “Dad, that was hell of a hit” or something like that.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know my grandfather was my father’s father, I did, but it sounded strange to hear it.

Thirty some years later I’d relive that when my own son said something to me about it was weird to hear me say “Dad” in reference to his grandfather.

I didn’t see any apparitions in the room, nothing resembling “Force ghosts” from Star Wars or sheet covered entities from Scooby Doo but I still heard their voices. Still heard both of my grandfathers debate how good a fighter Benny Leonard was versus Barney Ross.

You don’t hear about Jewish fighters anymore and the debates I once heard from groups of Jewish men who would slip between Yiddish and English are long gone.

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Iron Mike lost the fight, he wasn’t who he once was and I can’t say I was surprised to see him illustrate When Who We Were Meets Who We Are.

I don’t look quite like I did here anymore either and that is ok.

I have written about how the guy in the suit started down a path that would change his life in some of the more recent posts and how it led to the guy above.

That guy, he is thick in the middle of evolution and some big changes. I didn’t recognize him at first and then something clicked and now I do.

Now I see things and a path I didn’t before.

Set Fear Aside & Step Into The Future

Somewhere in between the eclipse of reality and the posts about the hero’s journey something clicked into place.

Something stopped the ball inside my head from ping ponging around with reckless abandon and I regained my senses.

Which isn’t to say I had lost them, but I had gotten spun up and for a moment I wasn’t seeing things with the kind of clarity I wanted.

And though he was ready to just walk away his heart refused to accept what was fed to his ears.
Heart and head battled for a while until he came across an old story and remembered.

That memory, that moment, that minute that lasted a lifetime changed everything.

I wrote an apology note that day that might never be read and did so because I needed to put it down upon a page.

It was an accountability thing and part of how I accepted some of what I had been fighting. It was part of my own When Who We Were Meets Who We Are moment.

Sometimes you have to have that time alone the quote above references to figure it out. I did and I have…mostly.

Now I am on a particular path and that hero’s journey I have discussed isn’t a thought or vague idea but an actual event.

Whitman and Twain

Been enveloped in Whitman and Twain stories and poetry. They are my stalwart companions and friends whose whispers of advice and commentary I still hear.

They remind me you can’t plan out every aspect of your life or prepare for all eventualities.

You can’t control others and at best you can only control how you respond to the things you encounter along the paths you take.

Captain your ship as best you can and do what you must to manage your way through the storms we all inevitably encounter.

Extend your hand to those who you wish to take it and withdraw it from those who haven’t the desire to hold it.

Not all who begin the journey will finish it with you. Some will leave the path forever and some may rejoin further down the road but only after they have gone on their own quest.

Separation may be painful but necessary for those intersections to take place again…if at all.

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form—no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Continuities- Walt Whitman