Mom looked at my father and asked him why he ordered the same meal he always does and then looked at me and said, “your father isn’t very adventurous.”
Dad shook his head and said, “I know what I like.”
I suppose it’s fitting to say I understand where both of them are coming from and that I wrestle with these things too.
When I visit certain restaurants I want to try something new but at the same time struggle because I know what I like and find a bad meal to be very disappointing.
It makes me think of the hang glider below and the fear I feel about hang gliding because I fear not doing it as much as I fear doing it.
I have heard people describe life as controlled chaos but I am not sure if I buy into the inherent contradiction of that particular phrase.
Of course calling it a myth lends weight to saying that I have a different or better definition but I am not sure that I do.
What I am certain of is that we never have as much control of life as we want and that sometimes that is a very good thing.
Why?
Because that lack of control is what pushes and or forces us to take on experiences that we grow, learn and change from.
Sometimes we move the chess pieces around our life boards and sometimes we are the chess pieces being moved around the board.
****
I am struggling today and I am not sure why.
Maybe it is because it is Monday morning and I am tired or maybe it is because I have a lot on my plate that makes me tired.
There is a sense that big changes are looming ahead of me and that makes me a bit crazy.
Sometimes I do better with the earthquake I can’t see coming than the tornado that fills the skies ahead of me.
While you can prepare for both they require different amounts of energy because when you are constantly on high alert it doesn’t take long for it to start wearing upon you.
It reminds me a bit of the schoolyard fights of my youth.
You and the other guy would start pushing and shoving each other until someone got the nerve to actually take a swing.
I hated that.
The anticipation of getting hit made me crazy so it is possible I might have thrown the first punch far faster than anyone expected, including me.
That is, if the stories/memories are true.
After all memory is a funny thing.
I came across Letters I Have Written-Never Meaning To Send and You Made Yourself Look Stupid in the archives.
Took a few minutes to read what I had written and was taken back in time to different moments and feelings.
Remembered things that were and tried to decide if the ideas I had about the future then… matched what is now.
Shook my head because in some ways the more things change the more they stay the same and yet everything is…different.
If there is/was a guide to talk to about my life’s path, a person, creature or being that had the knowledge and foresight to help me I’d grab them.
If they truly existed and I could speak with them I’d demand some answers and ask why they have insisted on messing with me.
I’d ask why they think that I am Charlie Brown and that I am going to try and kick that football knowing that Lucy is going to pull it away every damn time.
And then I’d ask them if they knew that eventually I’d tire of that game and try to kick Lucy instead to teach her a lesson.
Maybe they’d answer or maybe they’d ask me who taught who.
Time & Choices
Last night I looked at my mother and told her my financial advisor and I agreed I need to focus on working until I am at least 70.
I turned and looked at my father and asked him if he retired at 58 or 59.
“Something like that. I got lucky. They don’t offer packages like that anymore.”
Dad has been retired for years now and I am not jealous of his luck, well maybe a little but I am glad for him because he deserved it.
He put in almost 40 years.
If I retire at 70 I’ll have been working for almost 50.
I might work past 70 but I hope it is my choice to do so. I hope that between now and then I make enough money to have the power to make a decision.
It is kind of funny to say how we spend our time is a choice because I hear myself talk about working until 70 being mandatory but it is not.
I can go a different way and do things differently. I have a choice. We have choices.
My friend Mitch wrote a post that made me think about choices too.
Taste & Experience Life
One day I am going to die and so are you.
I think about it sometimes and wonder what the end will look like. It is not morbid curiosity, it is just curiosity.
Will I become a grandfather or great-grandfather? Will I publish all the books I have inside my head and write those screenplays?
What sort of people will my children become and if I do become a grandfather and or great-grandfather will I get to see the grandchildren grow up.
When I close my eyes for the last time will I do so knowing I tasted and experience life or will I wish I had time to do a little bit more.
Knowing me I’ll probably wish I had more time, but it doesn’t have to be said in a bitter way. It can be in a “damn that was fun, let’s do some more” kind of manner.
That is what I hope my kids see and do.
Taste and experience life.
Change can definitely be worrying and exciting. It seems here that the uncertainty is causing anxiety. Is that why you brought up death?
Whatever the change is I hope you will view it as for the best and it will be good for you and your family.
I wouldn’t classify it as the kind of anxiety that comes with being nervous in a bad way. It is more a sense of big changes, but in a good way so I am excited about it.