(Re)collect II

  

One of the pleasures of growing older is having the chance to look back on life from the distance of years.  Looking back 20, 30, 40 years offers me a richer more complex view of things than the thinner view when I was in the thick of it.  From a distance, I see how one thing unfolded to the next to make up the rich weave of my existence.  My understanding continues to change.

 

From this distance I can see where the woundedness took root and why the healing of this woundedness took its own long time for a reason.  I see how my life’s unfolding in the specific way that it did created the conditions for many gifts like my daughter, precious friendships, a long and devoted yoga practice.  While I wish it had been easier, I cannot regret the struggle. All those apparent dead ends, the inertia, the many failures in their own way helped me to grow in faith and courage.  All these struggles the compost heap feeding the soil of new growth.

 

I can see from this distance the dreams and hopes I let go of, the ones that took hold of me strongly, the ones I denied myself and still do.  I see the threads I picked up to follow, not as a rational choice, a cost-benefit of analysis, but from a deep need to pick them up and weave them into the dharma (purpose) of my life.

 

I see the great turning points, those times when events transpired and forces inside and out coalesced to change my life forever sometimes in a moment.  Other changes have taken decades to manifest.

 

My memory (smrti) of things is different from the lived experience of it.  There is something in this to learn about how to live a fuller life going forward.  It is likely I will not remember the momentary angst, irritations, and worries.  I won’t remember many clear details about what I did, what the conversation was about, how many times in a day my mood changed.  But some things will be very clear like the first time my little daughter rode on the merry-go-round alone. Each time she came around I waved and as she rolled out of sight my heart squeezed hard with the joyful and sad feeling of her eventual leaving me. My understanding of what was happening and why continues to change as time passes and likely will continue to change in the future.  No story is final.  I could never have foreseen what was to come. I have worried too much and not been grateful enough.