2.82: When the World has Moved On

Late yesterday afternoon I resolved to live life as fully as possible. This resolution came in the midsts of a very difficult transition and, at the time, seemed rash. When I woke up this morning I recognized that it was not rash at all. In truth it was liberating. Part of it was watching the twenty and thirty somethings I hang out with live these extraordinary lives. Part of it happened later. That part of it was a much simpler recognition that the life I’d been hoping to create further down the road was not ever going to happen. My first reaction to that bit of news was an utter surrender. Part of me still lives in that state and perhaps always will. But surrender is a type of freedom too.

It left me with a choice. I could keep on as I have been doing or I can accept the reality I face for what it is and learn to stop wanting what isn’t ever going to happen for me. I’ve long claimed that life without hope is a dark thing, and I still believe that. Yet in that darkness there can be possibility and growth. I asked myself, ‘what if you only had one year to live?’ I knew instantly I would not spend that year sad and broken, but would milk every possibility out of life–do the things I have always wanted to. I would care more about my joy because I knew I only had a little while to use it.

So that’s what I resolved to do. We don’t last forever. In the limited time we have we must be true to ourselves–to our wants and our needs. We must embrace what is possible, what is folly, and what has been lost. We cannot dwell on such things, but reality allows us a window and once we see that for what it is, living becomes much easier.