Sunday, April 8, 2001

When I was a child...

There's that Bible passage. They read it at weddings. About the time to put away childish things. It's strange at first to think about, that at a time when everything seems to be beginning, we turn to a passage about the end of something. But then you realize that every beginning comes after the end of something.
I don't feel like anything is ending, but it is. I've delayed putting away my childish things for so long that I don't even remember why anymore. I still fight growing up. "Young 'till I die"
Or so I thought. Part of what I believe in this world has to do with facing and accepting my own mortality. But I think that I've been lying my whole life. I think I've been afraid to grow up because I am afraid of the end of my life. It's crippled me in a lot of ways, because I'm not helpless, I've had opportunities, and I blew them every time. Like it was a game I could just reset and play again.
Of course it's my birthday soon. Why else would I be talking like this, right? But it's more than that. It's time for me to grow up. I can always do the things I love, even as a grown up, and I never even considered life in those terms before. I've been blind to how a man has always had to life his life. Meditation has taught me the simplest type of acceptance of my fate, but I'm still at a loss for what to do with the future. All I've done so far is accept. I know that one day I will be dead, hopefully by the time that day comes, I'll know that I've been alive.