Twenty years ago I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. My main interests included chasing cowboys on the rodeo circuit, and my goal in life was to own every color roper Justin boots made, both pull-on and lace up. I ended up with twelve pair total.
Looking back I am painfully aware of all the time and money I wasted trying to keep up with my friends, and maintain a lifestyle that I would one day out grow. But I learned some hard, yet valuable lessons, truths about myself and others that helped shape my ideals, and philosophies about, life, love, responsibility, and my own accountablility.
There comes a time on most of our lives when we reach that age of awareness that some things are just better left to the younger generations, and we finally become honest to God, real life, genuine adults. Like some mind boggling epiphany the reality of, " Holy shit I've become my mother/father. Dear God, I'm the voice of reason, and that's scary as Hell", kicks us in the head, and we understand that we have reached what I call, the age of Okay, NOW I get it.
Sure, I look at today's youth and think this world is going to hell in a handbasket, just like my parents generation did with mine. I watch the news, and pray for God's grace. I get disgusted with the idiocy of reality TV, and this culture's obession with all things celebrity, and wonder what happened to the days of families gathered around the Tv laughing at Carol Burnett, or playing games like Monopoly. Saturday morning cartoons have become politically correct Japanese animation crap. I don't know about ya'll but watching a coyote getting his ass kicked by a roadrunner did NOT make me a violent member of society, although you might end up as a little poof of dust at the bottom of a cliff if you royally piss me off.
Had I known then what I know now, my life may have turned out much differently than it is now, but I wouldn't have had nearly as much fun, or have so many great, crazy stories to tell. I wouldn't have learned that hurt and disaapointment make the good things in life even sweeter, and I wouldn't appreciate the woman I am today. I'm not perfect by the biggest longshot, and I don't profess to be so sage and wise that I can pass judgement based on my experience. This past year after losing my Moe has vividly shown me that you really can't say what you would and wouldn't do until you actually live the situatution. Walk and mile in someone else's shoes and you can bet your feet will stink just like theirs.
One thing I can honestly claim to know, I mean own this knowledge like it's a piece of my soul, is the simplest of life's truths. We are all born into this world, with the understanding that we are all going to leave it at some point. Dying is as much a part of the journey as living, and some of us leave sooner than others, but only God knows when, where, and how. It's up to us to make the most of all that is given to us, and to accept that we are never 100 pecent in control of anything on this Earth. We are our own stewards, and while we have the free will to decide when it's time to move to the next phase of living, some of us are too afraid to take that step, and either stagnate in the misery of our making, or spiral down into our own personal hells. Things happen in life that we will never understand while we are alive. Natural disasters, the cruelty of others, and the flaws of human nature are the mysteries of this life, and we really can't explain any of it as hard as we try, too often there are no answers.
I think a quote by the character Wyatt Earp from the movie Tombstone keenly describes the sentiment, or feeling we all share once we hit the enlightenment of true maturity. "I spent my whole life not knowing what I want out of it, just chasing my tail. Now for the first time I know exactly what I want and who...that's the damnable misery of it."
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