Couldn’t decide whether to start this with Rod Stewart’s Rhythm of My Heart or Mick singing Visions of Paradise so I listened to both and leaned into pounding upon the keyboard.
It’s almost 11 on a Saturday night and I am sitting next to a space heater thinking about how many parts and pieces of my life are contained within The Hero’s Journey.
Thinking about how many choices I made and paths I have chosen to walk upon or to avoid are contained within it.
If I sat upon the therapists couch and did nothing but review those moments I could pull a year of conversation out of it, if not more.
Layers of my history are contained within it, not unlike the roads I walked upon in Jerusalem.
I could write about internal battles with crusaders, modern empires and demons.
Could talk about how I am tired of dancing in the fire and listening to the echoes of the future and why I have chosen to make changes.
Could tell you how part of me would like to grab my father and tell him I want to bounce a few thoughts off of him but that is not going to happen.
In large part because he died six years ago and I can’t get him on the phone, send him an email or ask if he wants to go to Vegas with me.
But it is ok, because I know what dad would say.
It’s Your Decision
“I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t tell you what is right or wrong, you’ll have to figure that out and live with it.”
I smiled while typing that out because I could hear him say it and see his expression. I can hear my grandfathers and feel all of their presence around me like a bunch of force ghosts in Star Wars.
Can’t help but snort because I can hear my dad say it doesn’t matter what anyone says because “you’re going to do whatever you want to do regardless of what anyone says.”
He is not wrong.
It’s not unusual for me to do some research, ask for some feedback and then make a choice that may not be in line with any of the advice I received.
That doesn’t bother me because a big part of adulting is recognizing you operate in fields of gray where there is no definitive right or wrong answer.
Not every fraction can be reduced nor can you solve for X every time because some equations aren’t solvable in a traditional sense.
Sometimes you have to start new relationships and or end old ones for reasons that don’t always make sense to others.
Some have a lifespan that you might not be aware or able to identify when you begin them but you figure out along the way that you have reached a point where you can no longer find signs of brainwaves or a pulse.
Sometimes you discover there is a DNR and you scratch your head trying to figure out how that came to be and if you were consulted on it.
Regardless of whether you were or not consulted there are some situations in which it doesn’t matter. You could have the finest doctors in the world working on things and there would be no hope for the patient.
Who I Was
Someone told me they have trouble recognizing me and I asked if they are focused on who I was and not upon who I am.
If you didn’t know me at 18 and you tried to compare the face below to the face above you might not recognize me.
Though I think if you pulled off the sunglasses it would be obvious it is the same guy 37 years apart.
That kid was skinnier and had more hair on top of his head, though I was able to grow a beard then so the face could have had as much hair upon it too.
There would have been no gray or white at all in it and it was just as full if not fuller.
In some ways our thoughts and ideas would be similar to each other, especially in the way of certain foods.
Some of our dreams would be the same too, but not all.
Life changes us. It impacts and molds us and though I am as stubborn as they come it has changed me too.
That is ok, most of those changes can be called growth.
So if you say you don’t recognize me now I ask if it is because we have grown apart or just grown. That is ok, it is part of life.
Sometimes it can be hard, but if people don’t grow or change it is usually because they are comatose or dead.
So you either accept change or prepare to live a very hard life.
First, I can easily say that I wouldn’t recognize the 2nd picture whatsoever… Second, when I saw the new picture, initially I didn’t recognize it either because I had over 15 years of you looking totally different. lol
You mentioned “what Dad would say”; I can honestly say my dad wouldn’t say anything, because I’d have never asked him. On the 21st, he would have been 93 years old if he’d survived all of the things that happened to him while he was in the military, almost none of which I knew about until around 2019. That’s how families were back then; parents didn’t tell their kids anything, and different parts of the family knew things we didn’t until they mentioned it, and we didn’t even ask.
Your dad might have been a bit loquacious than mine; I’m not sure. What I do know is that it’s just me now, and I’m not sure I’m making the best decisions in the world… but it is what it is; isn’t that wild?
I suppose if you were used to the clean shaven, suit wearing, mid forties guy the new shot looks different. And there is definitely a difference between 18 and that forty something too.
My dad would be 81 if he were still here and depending on the topic he might not share much of anything.
But for this one, I know he would and I really do know what he’d say.
All we can do is take the information we have and make the best decision we can with it. And then we live with our choices.
But sometimes it is nice to have that one person listen.