What stage in life are you in? Are you half-way in to grade school or just wrapping up the first semester of college? Did you just celebrate your one year wedding anniversary or the 1 year mark of being divorced? Are you about to retire or reading this from a hospital waiting room as your daughter gives birth to your first grandchild?
Where are you?
Where we are in life isn’t important but we can’t forget that it’s always about to become more complicated. Each stage of our existence until our final moments is layered with more complications. Why?
“Everyone needs a teacher. Everyone is seeking a teacher.”
She says this to me as we we roll over the hills of Vermont after a day of coffee & intellectual conversation. We’re both thinkers and, at some point, we both wished we weren’t but, these days we’ve come to term with our mind/body disconnect. She has loved and lost many more times than I have but that’s part of age. That’s the beauty of growing older. We can only hope we’ve loved more than we’ve lost. Let’s pray that we give more than we take and let’s strive to embrace far more than we push away.
My first emotion when talking of life and growing older is regret & sadness. I grow sad knowing that my first marriage is statistically not destined to last. I’m depressed at the thought of my wife cheating on me because I’m just not that into sex (fun fact!). I weep at my son’s car crash that leaves him disabled and I yearn for a son & daughter that still say, “Dad, I love you.” when they go off to college to start their life away from home. I get short of breath when my 2nd marriage ends and she gets the house & car. I’m afraid of the day I reach my 10th year at my current job and am handed a pink slip just as I buy my first home, it’s a 3 bedroom because we’re about to have our first kid and now I’m jobless.
I worry about these things. The photo used above was taken at LoveFest in San Francisco. It’s an all-ages event and this is two teenage girls illegally scaling a traffic light.
Ah youth.
I haven’t lead a sheltered life. My parents never sheltered me. We were provided for but, compared to most middle class families, we weren’t well off. I worked minimum wage until my job at Apple at 18. Things have changed a bit. I make a lot more each year than I did at Apple and all that goes with my salary is complicated.
Your life will become more complicated. How will you cope?
That’s the point. I told her, a life-long teacher, a leader, a woman of the 50s that I fear losing my Father. He’s my teacher. How will I go on?
“You have to realize that he’s never gone. You carry on and he’s still with you. Every time you write, speak or entertain. Each time you love, you are carrying on what your Father has given you. He’s never far away.”
The thought that my Dad who’s not even 50 will one day leave me is scary. He was my age when I was born. He’ll be gone one day but not really. I’ll carry on his teachings and be the person who he had a part in shaping. That’s life.
In my years with Laura, I never kissed another woman. I never cheated. Before her, I never cheated on my previous girlfriend of 3 years. I don’t cheat. A friend told me that 80% of married men cheat on their wives. This makes me sad. It’s depressing to hear this statistic. It’s depressing to know that 1 in 5 men will break the promise they made.
Your integrity means more than anything.
How committed are you to your own life? Most of us are hypocrites. I am most of the time but that’s the problem when you publish your growth and life lessons. As I grow and change, it’s so simple for people reading this to go back and read the stupid crap i wrote 2-10 years ago.
“A poet will write of the importance of turning the other cheek. One day, he may write of the many men who died by his hand.”
Our lives are always in a state of change. That’s why I wrote that we should strive to hug more than push away. I want to be there for the people who are there for me and improve on my state of being and the impact I have on this world.
You don’t have to be me just as much as much as I don’t have to be you but we’ll learn from each other.
and yes, this will all become more complicated. Just you see.
as a matter of fact, I am reading this and it has been 1 yr since my divorce was finalized, and you are right… we learn from each other! I’ve learned to from others that it in fact does get more complicated no matter how great things may be going but no matter how complicated it may get there is always a lesson to be learned and great things to accomplish from it!
Though I can understand why you wrote this, I disagree with your statement (or “prediction”) that life gets more complicated. It will become “complicated” only if you allow it.
I have chose not to allow it! Perhaps my disposition comes with my age. Though I doubt it. I’ve been like this for almost 10 years.
I do agree that we all look for a teacher, a coach …mentor. Guidance. I find this all around me. In my boss (he’s the best!). My closest friends. My Mother. My oldest sister. My 9 year old niece. I truly miss my Father. He was the one I’d go to for guidance. Truth. I am who I am not because of what he told me… but rather how he said it me.
I choose to make my life less complicated and find guidance in everyone that I choose to surround myself with.
We will agree to disagree on this.
Adam,
An intriguing post. Life does become more complicated. You could also argue that life becomes simpler. These complications and simplifications enrich us, and we gain the ability to learn from them and resolve them.