Old Legends, They Never Fail

Superheroes and Fairy Tales, Old Legends they never fail to

Bring on a state of mind… of an older and happier time

I remember when I was young, Back when I had just begun to

Understand and know these things… But as it turns out, they’ll never change……

“I knew him for a minute.” That was the sentence my brother used when I let him know a childhood friend from the neighborhood had passed away. The entire Summer was filled with these kinds of reach-backs into our past. These things that happen when you get older, when the world of people you have known thins out. It’s almost like some energy has left the planet, a tiny bit of the many things that make up your lifetime. An old friend or acquaintance that you haven’t heard from in years, or though about, pops up in a memory and you wonder where they are? What they’re up to? If they’re still alive?…

Along with these roll-backs are thoughts and reflections to what kind of world it was back then. What kind of dreams and futures that were being built, how it worked out, and where it went wrong? It’s part of those reflections on life, when you try to hold it all up to the light to see its worth, it’s meaning, and the things you missed. An exercise in being, and an opportunity to stack some more finality to the memories and moments. A dip into the essence of it all that leaves you mostly uncomfortable, and doing your best not to stay too long. It’s painful, it’s honest, and it is another part of the segues that show up in other aspects of thought.

The people that produced me were more than my parents and family. The vast number of influences, lessons, and experiences, has done this sculpting. The creators using everything from fine instruments to sledge hammers to get into the thick of it all. In those people and experiences, my future was formed and extrapolated from. In that honest, and crunchy exercise of taking a look at it all, those influences became more defined. I came to find that the smallest connections had an oversized effect, and the bigger ones had an undersized result in many cases. Not all of them on either side of the equation, but enough to take a look at the notions of where I get my?… Fill in the blank…

When my brother made that comment, it initially sounded harsh, a bit of too much honesty. But that is where he is in his journey, he is a decade older and has his own thoughts about these things. Myself, Well, I am at my own place of thought, same subject, just constructed and viewed a little differently. I have noticed that in meetings and other situations too, two people speaking of the very same thing, but each of them at different places in their development that it sounds like separate concepts and topics altogether. The statement wasn’t harsh, it was just nuanced in his definition, where his head is at right now on life, and whatnot of his own.

As that sentence kept looping through my noggin, the people that I knew in my life started appearing in my thoughts. The ones who I knew for a minute, the ones I knew for a day, or a year or two. They all touched my life at some point, in some manner; Good, Bad, And indifferent. I believe that the part that really struck me about the comment was how it was dismissive, when it was more than that in the big picture of things through my Bay window worldview. Those people I knew for a minute shaped more than I realize, and the ones I have known for years, less than I would readily admit.

I could go into the Preachers that filled me full of fear, and the family members that always made me laugh. The checkout lady’s giant hair, and the days of yelling “Car” when you were throwing and kicking the various balls down the street. We all have them, mine are no different, they conjure up the days of magic, of laughter, of tears and of growing up. I know many of those kids still these days a half century later, mostly through social media, and cliques of friends. In fact, One just got married again, a love for the ages, so well deserved for both of these kind and gentle souls. The struggles of their life’s journey’s, and the beauty of them too, They have a right to be happy and are more than worthy of the joy. She is from the neighborhood, the memories mostly from grade school. I haven’t seen her in decades. These are the minutes that live on throughout the years. They become hours, and days, and weeks of thoughts when they all come together. So if I only know them for a minute, or only for a day, sometimes they become years in a lifetime, that moments are carried and stay.

There must be a few thousand versions of me out there, for all my moments. From the curious kid, to the obnoxious pain. The goofy teen, and the horrible scoundrel, the asshat boss, and the lazy worker. There may be some that paint me as kind, or gentle, or funny, or sad. There are definitely ones that paint me as every single thesaurus definition of mad. I have mine and you have yours, and they have theirs. They are all correct, they are all wrong, and they are all a part of the moments we make through life. Abraham Lincoln said something to the effect that if he didn’t lie, he didn’t have to remember what he said. The same rings true with staying in the present, and understanding the moments as they appear. Hindsight will leave you apologies to make, and foresight will leave you expectations to change. Both will be done, but remembering the two is helpful as you try to stay in the present. You never know what those moments will mean, for you, for them, and for, well… Forever.

Even though the world didn’t meet my childhood expectations of what the future would hold. It still built a future filled with curiosity and hope, of joy’s and dreams, of the wonders of this thing we call being human. For that I am certainly grateful, as I am for every one of you along the way for everything you do as well. Life’s a journey, in those things you do I get to see my childhood dreams and wonder live on. In the superheroes, and fairy tales, and old legends that never fail.

From an old lyric of mine.