So tonight I was looking over some of the things that Liz is having to go through to prepare for college now at my Alma Mater, UNCG.
Of course my brain started wandering down through the halls of time dragging up memories. And I really tried, but I don’t have any really good memories. One or two half decent ones but it’s mostly just a blur. I have a few good Memories of Little League Baseball. But even they are overshadowed by the bad ones and my failures both on and off the field. Sports in general were not good to me. I did have a perfect record going in wrestling in highschool but then I won one. (Actually it was a forfeit) Eventually I did legitimately win a match. It was a bitter victory because it hit me that there was a bigger loser than me out there. I kept thinking, “how bad do you have to be in order to be beaten by me??”
For the life of me I can’t dredge up more than a handful of good memories. Fishing and hunting with Bill Harris are a few. Camping out in the woods, eating Beanie Weenies and farting all night with the four guys I grew up with, (two sets of brothers and me an only child… Keith and Greg, Bill and Craig) too bad we drifted apart. Rather I drifted away.
I was always so busy trying to get to the next stage in life… I never really lived life to the fullest where I was at. Now, as the song says:
“The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play”
My children are all adults now. Yes, 18 is young but she’s still an adult and I’ll treat her as such. I have found people tend to rise (or fall) to the expectations you set for them. Treat them as adults they will be adults. Treat them as weak victims…they will become weak victims.
Reminds me of another song:
“Where do we go from here now that all of the children have grown up
And how do we spend our time knowin’ nobody gives us a damn”
Socrates at his trial said,
“The unexamined life is not worth living”
I would also include the life that has been examined and found wanting is also not worth living. It’s merely an existence to be endured.
So, as I look back, all I can see are the pot holes, the overgrowth, the failures, and nothing of worth. I never knew how to live so I’m saddled with a current mediocre existence bent on the necessary before the good, and the immediate rather than the best.
And before I get sermonized, I get it. See, this is my lot in life. This is where I am, where I’m supposed to be. And I am trying to come to terms with my place in life.
Yes, I know who I am “in Christ Jesus,” that does not change who I am, and where I’m at in life. One is spiritual, the other is in the flesh or physical. My salvation does not change my past, put rose colored glasses on my past or improve my past. The facts of my past, and my rembrance of my past remain unchanged.
So tonight I waded through the wastelands of my memories hoping to find a few good memories to salvage and all I can come up with are counting the weenies in the beanies and all night farting contests. That’s about par for my life.
C’est la vie, c’est la guerre
Leave a comment