The Better Path

"The first thing you do at the end is reflect on the beginning. Maybe it's some form of reverse closure, or just the basic human impulse toward sentimentality, or masochism, but as you stand there shell-shocked in the charred ruins of your life, your mind will invariably go back to the time when it all started. And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will feel like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benatar or The Cure on the soundtrack.” ~ Jonathan Tropper, This is Where I Leave You

It seems to be the year of closure for me.  First, after so many years of self-imprisonment, I finally was able to let go of my hatred.  I've made my peace with TK.  And now, after more than fifteen years, once and for all, I finally have closed the chapter on a part of my life that had remained unresolved.

I never found out "why" things happened the way that they did between us.  The "why" did not matter in the long run.  After such deception, there was no way back.  But that did not ease the pain of knowing that I was just a secondary choice.

He contacted me last week, to "explain" and beg for my "forgiveness."  In my heart, there was nothing to forgive, because I had been over it.  I let him attempt to explain.  This confession was not about me anyway.  It was about him, and how he had to relieve himself of the guilt that he had been carrying around all these years.  After he lifted the weight of it all off of his shoulders, he broke down and wept, and I could hear the shuddering of his chest and shoulders as he sobbed over the phone.

I felt weightless and free after his soulful confession.  All I could think about was how happy I am now, and how differently my life would have been if he and I had stayed together.  The destruction of our relationship set both of our lives into the path that we had both taken separately, and I am happy that things have worked out as they did.  I have G and I have found an even greater love with GP than I ever did have with him. 

I am learning that sometimes what we end up with in life is actually better than what we thought we had really wanted.

Ticking

“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays.  Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.” ~ Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

My 42nd year of life crept on me a few weeks ago.  As was my wish, there was no fanfare and no bright lights.  But the people who mean the most to me celebrated my life by surrounding me with their love and warmth.

It was all that I wanted.

***

It's difficult to not assess our life without thinking about the years and time that pass us.  When I met with old friends from my kung fu school a few weeks ago, I was made aware of the fact that it had been nearly a decade since we all had trained together formally.  When I realized that my birthday had come and gone, I could not ignore the fact that I am aging and that the time for certain events in my life might be coming to an end soon.  And when I received the news from my friend C that her mom unexpectedly passed away in her sleep, I had to face the realization that the last time I had seen her mother was when she attended my own sister's funeral in 2000.  It had been thirteen years since I had seen her, and this past Friday, I saw her again for the last time, at her funeral.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, the clock keeps ticking.  Man may be the only creature that keeps time, but nature does as well.  That is why there are changes in the seasons -- Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.  The seasons represent the time for rebirth, growth, death and rest.  Nature may not keep a clock, but it still knows that there is a time, and a season for everything.

Photograph Yourself

“I was looking at the photographs and I started thinking that there was a time when these weren't memories.” ~ Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I was chatting with my friend A the other day.  We met in 2001.  He was a tourist that had been visiting DC, the city where I was living at that time, and we met at the airport on my return trip from Europe.  We became instantaneous friends, and although he lives in another country, we had managed to stay in touch all these years.  He had stayed in DC for about a week during his stay in 2001, and I had spent some time with him, showing him around the city and introducing him to my friends.  

Since that time, we had not seen each other again.  When we spoke the other day, we realized that it has now been twelve years since we've seen each other.

I had asked him if he had kept any photos from when he was here.

"No," he said.  "I'm not a big fan of photos, especially of myself."

I was never really a big fan of photos of myself either.  At least, I was not, until just recently.

During a recent visit to my brother's new house in DC, he showed me a box of old pictures that he had found during his move.  They were boxes of my old belongings -- mostly my old journals and photos from an era long gone.

I found this photo, along with many others from when I was much younger.  I might have been seventeen in this photo.  It's not a particularly flattering photo of myself, but when I came across it, I was immediately transported to a time and place that I can barely even remember now.  I looked through all the other photos, and sadly realized that there were blocks of time from my life that were missing.  I later determined that for most of my 20s, I failed to photograph myself and my life.  In fact, it was not until I was nearly 30 that I developed a love for pictures, and it was the death of my sister that actually had pushed me to even start.  I remember too that my Mom had once told me that "you will never look as good as you do now, as time and age eventually will get to you.  So document yourself as you are now.  You will regret it if you do not."

So now, I take photos of everything, and even have myself photographed whenever I can -- even if I have pimples on my face, or even if I am having a bad hair day, because in twenty years time, none of that will matter.  I will look back on the photos that I take today, and someday, I will say, "Look at me when I was younger" and I will have proof that once upon a time, I actually was young and beautiful.

7 April 2013