About Time

My son saw the book I was reading... "How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk"....

Perhaps this is why people have switched to tablets/iPads to read.

He looked curiously at me and again asked if Daddy was a jerk.  This was the second time we have had this conversation.  He saw the book months ago and asked the same thing.  My response was the same...his dad and I were both jerks in our marriage because we just didn't know how to get along.  And it was better for everyone if we weren't together anymore.  But I assured him that just because something is true doesn't mean it's easy.

I have had to learn the hard way most of my lessons.  I am very stubborn and strong willed.  I like to talk things to death, simply out of curiosity.  I always make the decision that I want to make regardless of the feedback I get.

Sometimes these words not heeded led to pain.

But with my intense pain also came my intense joy.

(Not that I shouldn't have listened to wise advice....but you know. whatever.)

It's impossible to have one without the other.  The yin and the yang.  Good and Evil.  Dark and Light.  One cannot exist without the other.  I had the happiest moments of my life when I was married.  The pain didn't remove those.  Nor did they lessen them.

One of my favorite movies "About Time" captures this concept.  The lead character is given the gift of being able to go back in time to any point in his life and redo.  Of course he does it often in the beginning for silly reasons...to avoid looking like an idiot, to kiss the girl he ignored, to stop an argument, to pass a test he failed.  But what ends up happening is he misses out on LIFE.

We were created to taste, touch, hear, see, smell. (I may or may not have had to look up what the five senses were just then).  We wouldn't know what smells pleasant if we didn't smell something gross.

The character then goes back just to slow down and LIVE each day fully.  He listened to someone's pain instead of spewing advice.  He paid attention to the girl who served him coffee and received a smile.  He saw the beauty of a building he had run through in a hurry previously.

Living fully requires acceptance that we will sometimes be late.  We will often look like fools.  I mean, often.  We will stand out when we want to fit in.  We will have to be social when we want to be introverted.

If living fully means I get to fully experience life, then bring on the clown suit.  I'd rather look like a fool than miss out.