I will be more careful

I have more white hairs today, they snuck up on me;  funny, the  way  we pretend  to  accept  that  kind of observation. The valley of time that permeates the living part of my life, once again bathed in the irony of aging, presented some analogous fact I now stumble to comprehend -or do I? I feel as if I have walked the deserts and valleys of this short sting on Earth with a certain purity. Begotten from an act and now fully justified -by being- one could only wonder as to what may be next; it is all chaos in the end with one act justifying the next as a consequence of the former.

Examples aplenty surround me as I implore my thoughts to aimlessly gather all manner of record while dictating what is to come to my thoughts; barring the recollecting I wish to retrieve in a simple act of ignoring what is while wishing for what may. Whether on film or prose, or perhaps in the exercise that is observing  others, or merely from the conversation had with someone, there must be, at every stop, a glimpse giving way to reality. To jump into this ocean of uncertainty without the best suitable protective gear or means to navigate it simply seems irresponsible. Yet, I betray myself in a fashion suitable for a human lost in the debris of their past.

Then again, we seem to strive in the unknown parts of our lives for so long. Concocting scenarios every turn, imagining what a meeting will be like, practicing what will be said, anticipating questions, and ultimately forging a stage from where to step from -once in the real one- are all plausible and entertainable avenues of approach. This platform we seem to build in our imagination is vast and like a movie-set it is taken down after utilized and re-used later when necessary.

I feel I am as much made of these uncertainties as I am of reality, for not only does one impart what the other may be, but in relation to one another, they seem dependant on not just us, our thought process, and our imagination to exist, but also on our will to remember it all. Our lives are somehow this ball of snow that slowly picks up not only its environment, not only the intended snow, but also the debris on its path, which while unintended also helps strengthen the bond with the whole. 

Yet, we are surprised when the expected catches up to us, when what we have seen and ignored in our family, friends, and self -especially when looking back from the mirror- finally transforms into our reality. Suddenly there is a shift in thinking. No longer can the things of the past be as they were. Time, always our enemy, presents itself in such a way that we must succumb to it because of our lack of strength, and hardly ever because it is time. Thus, age now our life and not our dreams, we begin to live our life then. Before this  moment where age is real, it is all practice for a meeting we never have, preparation for a situation that never forms, and waiting for all the dreams we imagine to come to reality,  but no more.

Life now  life for the  first time it  is the only thing  we  never prepared for. In younger times a pain unexplored was a pain that would subside in the temperament of our youthful thoughts, whereas now it is a constant reminder of our fragility. Where once leaving meetings for later,  or  pushing things forward  was a practice well guarded, but now we treat each one as if it were the last one; finally giving  a situation the respect it deserves.

It is times like now, when one more gray hair appears in the mirror, that I wonder if I am alive, if it is all worth it, if I am enough, if I have succeeded, and if I have regrets. Nothing more pressing and heavy in our hearts and thoughts as regrets; the banality of forlorn moments which amass to one great failure. That is the loss we feel  in the end, the  individual  failures that we believe matter or would in some form leave an impression of us not mirrored in our picture-of-the-self. As if that wasn’t enough, there is the contrivance of means by which to somehow make amends for a whole life, decades of a menagerie of events all somehow neglected.

I am not  the  failures of my  life, nor  the sum of all my triumphs, I am merely that which it all has molded me to become. For better, I will no longer summon fantasies about what things will or may happen given a scenario. For worse, I will fail in my attempts as death creeps by and I merely expect the final knock at the proverbial door of life. In the meantime, next time I will be more careful….