An epiphany of youth.
It is good to be home. It is good to feel the gentle summer wind waft across the endless fields of the country, a firm reminder of the peace that still exists in the world. A reminder that there is life.
That seems such a self-evident thing- that I, that we, are alive- and yet, too often I fear, we easily forget the importance of that simple fact. It is so easy to forget that you are truly alive, or at least, to appreciate that you are truly alive, that every sunrise is yours to view and every sunset yours to enjoy.
And all those hours in between, and all those hours after dusk, are yours to make of what you will.
It is easy to miss the possibility that every person who crosses your path can become an event and a memory, good or bad, to fill the hours with experience instead of tedium, to break the monotony of the passing moments. Those wasted moments, those hours of sameness, of routine, are the enemy, I say, are little stretches of death within the moments of life.
Yes, it is good to be home, in the free and wild lands of the country, where new places to explore and interesting people to meet are aplenty. I am more alive and more content then in many years. For too long, I struggled with the implications of my family. For to long, I struggled the reality of death, that I may outlive the lifespan of my friends, or that they might outlive me, literally and figuratively.
What a fool I am to rue the end of our days without enjoying the days the I, that we, now have! What a fool I am to let the present sink into the past, while lamenting a potential- and only potential- future!
We are all dying, every moment of every day of every year. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyze us with fear, or one that can energize us with impatience, with the desire to live and to experience, with the hope- nay the iron will!- to find a memory in every action. To be alive, under sunshine or under starlight, in weather fair or stormy. To dance every step, be they through gardens of bright flowers or through deep snows.
The young know this truth so many of the old, or even the middle-aged, have forgotten. Such is the source of the anger, the jealousy, that so many exhibit toward the young. So many times have I heard the common lament, “If only I could go back to that age, knowing what I know now!” those words amuse me profoundly, for in truth, the lament should be, “If only I could reclaim the lust and the joy I knew then!”
That, I believe, is the meaning of life, I have come to understand, and in that understanding, I have indeed found that lust and that joy. A life of ten years where those feelings, where that truth is understood, might be more full than a life of centuries with head bowed and shoulders slumped.
I remember the first time I rode on a roller coaster, the wind blowing in my face and a grin upon my head. How strange it is, that as I as I gained more to lose, I allowed that joy to diminish!
It took me this long, through some bitter losses, to recognize the folly of that reasoning. It took me this long, to wake up to the life that is mine, to appreciate the beauty around me, to seek out and not shy away from the excitement that is there to to be lived.
There remain worries and fears, of course. A number of friends are gone from us, lost in the world that seems only to hold despair to those who would view it that way. I have had to accept their path, accept that it was theirs to make. I pray our paths will cross again, that some news of them will reach me, either calming my fears or provoking action of some sort.
But I can be and convince myself of the best. For to brood upon my fears, I am defeating the entire purpose of my own life.
That I will not do.
There is too much beauty.
There are too many dangers and too man roads to explore.
There is too much fun.
