Looking Back ...

Looking Back ...

You said to me, "Shoot for the stars, boy, there is no limit to what you can do."

When I crashed somewhere close to Jupiter, you said to me, "Land on the moon, boy, you've still so much to be proud of."

And here I am, looking back and remembering what you said.

Looking back? Looking back ...

Sort of a summing up, I guess. Sort of a post facto judgement on a life. Really, not something I am inclined to do.

But here I am. Looking back.

So much effort exerted to make things work, when I knew things were not going to work.

So many emotional commitments, reaching for that invisible connection, and so many broken promises.

So many hours, days, and months spent alone, testing the spirit that burned inside of me, and watching that spirit soar and crash, crash and soar — the repetition over repetition of experience.

So many people wandering in and out of my life, and so many who left their baggage by the door for me to find an appropriate means by which to dispose of it.

So many best friends, and so many lost friends.

So much time, so much time filled with wonder and excitement, and so much time wasted from simply wandering aimlessly in search of something tangible, something to hold on to and grasping at air.

Life bleeds from every wound we suffer.

The miracle is that we continue at all. But we do continue, because that is what heartache and failure teaches us to do. Continue. There really is no other option, at least not a suitable one.

And still I remember you saying, on a dark and foggy night, "I can't continue without you."

And my reply was glib, when I said, "You managed well enough before me, you'll manage now."

Life bleeds from every wound we inflict on others.

And we expect those we hurt to continue as well, to survive the dissolution of their faith in us. It's not cruel, because sometimes it's absolutely necessary, but all the same, it's heartless.

Looking back, I suppose I wish that I had been kinder, more forgiving of those who trespassed when I left the door open to trespassers, more honest with myself instead of second-guessing and mistaking the intentions of others, more ready to recognise that those I thought had come to help build a house and a home were those who came to burn the house down instead. I have never suffered fools easily. I am amazed that I was, too often, the fool.

Life is a series of invitations that arrive in the mail. You are invited to take part in a series of celebrations, in a calendar filled with joyous events, with birthdays, graduations, weddings, the birth of your children, the successes of your career, the beginning of your retirement. You are invited to love and complete yourself in the arms of another. You are invited to embrace every moment as if it were your last. There hardly seems room for sadness.

And yet ...

... there is sadness.



© Kennedy James. All rights reserved.