Unsolicited Rant

There were a lot of choices for the title of this piece: “Life’s Too Short” “Appreciate What You Got” “Back at Zero Again.” It became clear that what I actually wanted to do was rant. So that is the disclaimer. Please note that I am very careful to use WE...I more than include myself in the object of this rant. Read at your own risk and visualize the hand.

Life is too short. Too fucking short as a matter of fact. I figured it out before, so how did I lose sight of it so quickly? Talking today with a friend, actually trying to buoy him, to cajole him into LIVING life instead of making excuses, I realized AGAIN, how much time we waste. I mean, do we really need to spend so much time thinking/worrying about all the things in our lives are not exactly the way we want them to be? Do we really need to waste time figuring out every movement before we step forward? “Isn’t it hard enough just to make it through the day,” said Sade in a song. Why do we always complicate life?

As I drove home, I was attentive to the folks on the street. There was a lonely guy walking home looking around him as though the girl of his dreams might pop out at any moment. Then I saw the couple walking down the street clutching each other tightly in the throes of what looks like first stages of romantic love. Everybody is yearning for this closeness, this connection to other people. So what happens between that early blush of attraction and the sparring we so often see between couples?

Since the divorce, I am particularly sensitive to the dealings between couples. When I am standing in line at the store, walking down the street, sitting in a restaurant, wherever I am, I feel and hear the conversations, read the gestures, sense the tone. I hear the conflict, the manipulations, the discord most acutely. At first, it made nervous, brought up too many painful memories. I just wanted to get away from the discomfort as soon as possible. But time has made me less anxious. Now, I hear the conflict and I wonder if it is really necessary.

I mean, life really is too short to deal with each other in what seems like a constant state of strife. I can’t see into the lives of passersby, though I recognize the symptoms, but couples that are my friends and families are another case altogether. I have watched too many people I know love each other tear into each other over the smallest incidents. Do we just take each other for granted? Are we protecting ourselves, our deepest, innermost hearts, by keeping each other at arms length? Is this protection really worth making those we care for feel small and insignificant? Or is it just the only way we know how to make ourselves not feel small and insignificant?

Whatever we know today could be gone tomorrow. Why not enjoy it? It is surely important to express ourselves, say the things that we need to say. We can do it in such a way that doesn’t undermine others. We can do one thing every day that we want to do to counter-balance all the things we don’t want to do instead of doing what is expected of us grudgingly. We need to make every day the day we want it to be by claiming small rituals, blessing those around us with happy contemplations of what is happening in the world, seeing the silver lining whenever possible, and especially telling those we care about exactly how we feel about them. It works the other way too: stop putting up with shit that makes you crazy. Get that new job. Find some new friends. Move toward your goals, slowly, quickly, any way you can.

I know, I know, too much time back in California and all the flower child comes out… but seriously ya’ll take your lives back and enjoy them.