Or perhaps the reverse where my five year old self comes and visits my 43 year old self hiding in a room, and persuades him to come out and play. Because I am on a retreat from the outside a little, and it isn't healthy.
Time is fleeting, and we only live once, probably.
Thank you, especially for your imagined reversal -- well said. I've thought of that too, and have spent too much of my life hiding, I'm still hiding in many ways -- incredibly hard just to post that paragraph, which was written first as a paragraph in the middle of a long letter to a close friend.
The other thing that occurred to me for the first time in the last few days is that I'm a little angry at that kid, because he made decisions that were not good for him or for me, decisions so deeply burned into our soul that they are very tough to change, and yet must change before we perish of them. That recognition is very scary.
Time, yes -- at 49, seven sevens, I am often overwhelmed by the rapidity with which it all flies away.
I too know these feelings of anger (and also shame) at the cowardliness of my five year old self. And I have felt a good deal of sorrow over the missed opportunities that cowardliness caused,as well as over all that my parents failed to provide in the way of guidance or even simple understanding, or even recognition, but in the last year or so I have begun to learn how healing it can be to provide now my five year old self the compassion and understanding that was lacking when she and I were one.
Of course ultimately we won't make it out alive, or what makes it out won't be alive in any ordinary sense, or --
But yes. So far, we've made it out alive, and what an odd and unlikely and marvelous miracle it is. Once upon a time, in recognition of how magnificent we are in all our brokenness and partiality, I wrote a hymn or a prose poem in praise of mortality. It's far from perfect, as is only appropriate.
Our Younger Selvespurple_markDecember 3 2008, 17:45:56 UTC
When I was a young teenager, I knew that I was safe until I was 21, but after that -- well, anything after that was extra time. I have a strange heart/brain condition where I could at any time fall down dead. At first, that used to scare the hell out of me. Like when I experienced severe angina on Christmas Eve, and I thought that I wasn't going to open my presents only a few hours later. Or when I was in English class studying 'Hamlet' of all things when my heart quit or beat so slowly for about five minutes that I thought I was dying.
But I learned to use it as a way to stay connected with the present, living as much as possible in the here and now. Now at 50, I'm amazed that I'm still alive, After my numerous bouts of food poisoning, lightning strikes,almost get- ting hit by cars and of course, all times I've forgotten to breathe or the heart to beat, I'm still here and my younger self didn't know about these things.
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Or perhaps the reverse where my five year old self comes and visits my 43 year old self hiding in a room, and persuades him to come out and play. Because I am on a retreat from the outside a little, and it isn't healthy.
Time is fleeting, and we only live once, probably.
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The other thing that occurred to me for the first time in the last few days is that I'm a little angry at that kid, because he made decisions that were not good for him or for me, decisions so deeply burned into our soul that they are very tough to change, and yet must change before we perish of them. That recognition is very scary.
Time, yes -- at 49, seven sevens, I am often overwhelmed by the rapidity with which it all flies away.
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Rebecca
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My love also to that 5 year-old; he is beautiful & precious, and has a glorious future to discover.
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But yes. So far, we've made it out alive, and what an odd and unlikely and marvelous miracle it is. Once upon a time, in recognition of how magnificent we are in all our brokenness and partiality, I wrote a hymn or a prose poem in praise of mortality. It's far from perfect, as is only appropriate.
Reply
extra time. I have a strange heart/brain condition where I could at any time fall down dead. At first, that used to
scare the hell out of me. Like when I experienced severe angina on Christmas Eve, and I thought that I wasn't going
to open my presents only a few hours later. Or when I was in English class studying 'Hamlet' of all things when my
heart quit or beat so slowly for about five minutes that I thought I was dying.
But I learned to use it as a way to stay connected with the present, living as much as possible in the here and now.
Now at 50, I'm amazed that I'm still alive, After my numerous bouts of food poisoning, lightning strikes,almost get-
ting hit by cars and of course, all times I've forgotten to breathe or the heart to beat, I'm still here and my younger
self didn't know about these things.
Reply
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