ive been kind of perturbed lately when people talk about the good, simple days of younger years. was it really that much simpler? i mean i had some pretty weighty thoughts as a kid (or so i thought then) as illustrated above. isnt there a good bit of revisionist history that goes into our memories of 'back when'. dont get me wrong, i loved childhood, but it seems like we just slide along on a relative scale of complexity. that statement probably isnt true.
thankfully, i think im always glad that im alive in today and not alive in yesterday. as good as yesterday was, i would never want to go back to it, i never could go back to it. at least not knowing and being the person that i am now.
all that being said, i live so much of my time in the past (and future). lately, its mostly been the past. or at least that my present is so tightly pegged to the past that there isnt much separation. sometimes it's just tough to live fully in the present when the past seems like so heavy an anchor...and that anchor seems to be dragging along such precious ground.
i had glimpses this week of how living in the present can be great. i really enjoyed the present of getting to know brothers and sister better and not worrying about where its been or where its going. we still explored the past, but it was a very present kind of exploration. living in those kind of moments is nice.
on a less depressing note. christmas was great fun.
blaine cousins minus jesse and chris and peanut
3 comments:
Funny you should write about this topic--I just came from organizing my entire photo collection and thought about my life as a little girl and what it's meant to grow up. There were so many, so many photos of all of us back on our retreats and games and etc., me reveling in my nonchalant teenage glory. You have a point with the relative scale of complexity idea, but my definitive answer to that quandry is that yes, times were simpler for me back then...I hadn't gone through so much of the shit that's made me who I am today...and the truth is, there are things that threaten innocence (or downright destroy it), or at least give us a little more weight to carry on our shoulders for better and for worse. I worried and cried and raged as a kid but there are different levels to all human emotions. But I also feel glad to be living as me, now, rather than me back then. I wouldn't go back to that!
And as not to sound too depressing, this is where we answer with our common Truth: If we hadn't gone through all of the increasingly more complex emotions and situations of adulthood and of life, we wouldn't be who we are today....we wouldn't have learned lessons...and we wouldn't have made progress blah blah blah.
Anyway, it was good to hug you for even just a second and thank you for writing...it's been lonely on here!
we look before and after
and pine for what is not
our sincerest laughter
with some pain is fraught
our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought
(that would be Percy Bysshe Shelley, my favorite of the romantic poets, and I thought this little morsel of his was relevant)
joel! i love comic books!!!! i have lots of old ones if you ever want to read them.
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