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| this took 8 tries |
You know you’re having one of those seminal moments in life when you want to write it all down and can hardly stop and all of a sudden it’s 3AM. This Exodus is one of them. And I don’t mean seminal in the sense of semen, I mean in the sense that I recognize that what is happening to me right now is redesigning the future me.
And my head is on fire. I can hardly come up with one story that I want to tell you. I have the journal which is almost 50 pages at this point, and so by the end it should be Sacajawea thick.
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| hot deli and wisdom |
And it is continuously amazing to me what people will tell you when you ask the right questions and look them in the eye and are also genuinely interested. I remember this from driving a taxi for a year in my home town. I remember specifically that people will tell you almost anything when you just let them talk.
I sat next to “DD” from GA, and his friend, “A”. “DD” was cool guy, we hit it off right away. But we really got into it when his friend left for a bit and he, well, his clamshell got steamed up.
His mom died in a car accident on this day two years ago. She lost control of her car and ran into a tree, and the coroner told him that the only damage she sustained was a broken ankle. But then, the car caught fire and exploded. She was 47.
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| walnut street bridge, chattanooga |
I said it was a shame that he had to learn that lesson in such a difficult way but also that for thousands of years philosophers and poets and theologians have all been expounding on the human experience of being in the face of death.
Maybe you haven’t that oh shit moment. You will. It is not a little thing like missing a step or almost changing lanes into a car that is already there. Those are scary, but they aren’t quite at the level of the “this is it.”
I have had a few. Most recently, I was on a bike ride with my friend in winter of last year and at about 25 miles an hour on a downhill, I stopped paying attention and hit a huge rock in the road, which shot the bike and me still attached to the bike, towards the heavily wooded not-suitable-for-bikes area. I could not brake, I only had a few seconds. I saw a tree and a telephone pole and between them, a clearing. I instinctively unclipped, ditched the bike, and dove into that clearing.
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| little walkway..yes, i will walk down you... |
And what happens after this, not at all at once of course, but little by little you get more comfortable with getting this kind of crap out of your vocabulary: (1)I cant (2) I would, but I cant (3) I shouldn’t (4) I want to, but I cant. Not tonight (5) I would love to really, but I have to do ______.
You will regret these words on your deathbed, and in that “oh shit” moment. And I have a secret for you, that moment is coming your way, and that deathbed is all fluffed up.
Yes, all the shit you wanted to do and all the shit you wanted to say and all the people you wanted to say I love you to and the one job you really wanted to have and all of the apologies that you still want to make: they all happen in that moment.
Pick a someone you wanted to say I love you too and tell them that very thing, and pick one thing you have wanted to do and do it with no regard to anyone’s reaction or judgment, and research what that dream job might entail, and call one person that you think might need an apology. Don’t shake a friends hand when you really want to hug.
Have seminal moments on a daily basis. No tissues required.
