Perhaps it is fitting that I sit here in NYC back at the 210 lb mark. After all, it was here in NYC 20 yrs past that I sat at 165 with hopes of being a muscular 200 lbs. I over shot the mark by 10 lbs, none of which are muscle. This feels like a metaphor for my life which has brought upon me a weightiness I did not expect through travels and events I could never have imagined. Yesterday I met up with many of my closest friends from high school. While there were eight notable absences from that inner-cadre, the ones who made the journey 29 yrs in the making helped me to remember the lessons that catapulted me into the world in the first place.
This is the first time in a decade I’ve gone somewhere and not dragged along work with me. I brought the bones of a novel on my honeymoon. Needless to say I was the guy who never quit. After a decade, the constant need to work eroded the quality of that work and of my mind itself. I lost my way and my will and my nerve to be creative. My quality of work and life degraded as responsibilities piled up and for a very long time I believed my best work was behind me. It took a reunion and a look at some old writing to remember the blueprint of what was and what is.
My point is this: It is normal and even expected to get beat down by life. As we go on we forget what can be and drown in what is. Find time to remember who you mean to be.