So it’s been about a year since I committed to be committed to my blog.

Listen:

It hasn’t gone the way I expected, but it is safe to say it also hasn’t gone the way I expected. It’s like swimming in the ocean, and getting temporarily caught in the undertow. At first there is panic and a sense of foreboding, surrounded by the rushing, swirling maelstrom of dark water. Then suddenly deep breath fills your lungs, and you are sitting in wet sand looking out at the horizon. Kind of like cup of soup.

I am very shortly entering into the seventh year of my new reality. The new life i forged for my family’s well being, and my professional contentment, and it has been eventful and chaotic. Change, however, is inevitable. Seven years is a lifetime to a cell, and we all regenerate in our own time. What life used to be about is no longer what it is about now – and I guess that is why it is called growing up, sliding down from the pedestal we put our daddy or mummy on. The Orient expresses a multitude of ageless and varied ways in which to find inner peace, but sometimes we just need to find a big friendly button to reset ourselves with.

Thanks to our ability to experience the passage of Time, We evolve and accept our new realities because to not do so would drive us to insanity and depression. Time away and Time alone allows for fondness of the heart to grow, and the opportunity to recognize those parts of life that are most important. Regardless of whether it is Time/She, or Time/He, is the fact that we wear it like a burden, and stake our claim to its stain upon us, really the best thing we can do with it? How do we just let it flow?

That may sound a bit philosophically full of itself, but it (if I can, just for a tic tock, turn this linguistic robot off) sure would be satisfying to know definitively that my careful thoughts don’t mean I am becoming boring.

Letting go of that which hurts us, or injures us, is the only true way to find our way in the forest. Of the nights and days I’ve already lived, I never assumed I could be the one carrying injury within me. Still, the trees shield us from the worst of the weather, and ground beneath our feet is firm and strong, giving us safe and steady passage along that long, flat line to tranquility.

As it is, i am home, and I am once again faced with my own wandering self-actualization. I am Dad. I am Husband. I am The Caretaker and The Provider. And my family looks to me for strength and support and guidance. What can I say? Except that i am as imperfect as everyone else. I believe in the mystery and wonder of the Universe, but it scares me. I am afraid of, but believe in the necessity of Death; in Heaven, whatever form it may take; and in the simple things that make life bearable – hugs, the smell of fresh ground coffee, having a place to belong.

So we get on with ourselves and our lives as best we can, despite the disappointment in the results immediately in front of us. It won’t always be this way. There will be ups and downs and sides. I will still get frustrated by laundry. I will still forget something. And, to paraphrase Bill Shakespeare, start most mornings off by saying “Get up Son, kill the moon and all that jazz” or whatever the quote was that sounded niftier in my head.

It’s Time to refocus my focus. It isn’t actually all that bad. I just need to find my Tao. Grab myself by the collar and run headlong into the great outdoors. “Let’s go, pal. You’re not quite over the hill! Into the dale, kiddo!” or some other such Tolkeinesque frolicsome blithering.

Let’s be honest – I am not a guy that frolics. I’m just not that graceful. But you get the idea. I am basically an idiot. And that’s ok.