Current Contemplations.

I am starting my eighth month in a new home and yet if feels as if eternity has passed since July. Returning from vacation last summer, without much deliberation or discussions, we packed my old Toyota with a few necessities, not too mention Sammy - and that was it, I have moved. Some months after that my old house was rented out and simultaneously put up for sale.

It has all been easy and uncontrived. All the decision we make together come along naturally and are unforced. Even though our every day life is filled with problems, we seem to have the same outlook on life and share the same values and opinions on how to solve them. This fuels our passion for each other.

I truly do feel deeply loved and cherished. Oddly enough, the incredible respect with which I am being treated now keeps bringing to my recollection the terrible way I have been used and abused in my past.
I find it endlessly intriguing the way human psyche works and how we deal with the aftermath of the events in our life. Today I seem to be thinking a great deal about my loss, that devastating loss which I experienced last spring. The wound still runs too deep to reveal it's details in my writing, yet it is something that seems to haunt my mind currently.
This makes me struggle with an internal conflict over whether some people that cause us deep pain should never be forgiven and should only be forgotten. I hope one day I will come to that profound insight which will enable me to understand and finally forgive the actions of someone I trusted, but I am not there yet.

Fortunately I know that as winter moves into spring and into summer, even my recollection will dwindle and I will embrace my present and focus on my future.
One wonderful product of changes, among many, is that they force us to reevaluate our life and ourselves.  I believe our traits are a consequence of both our environment and our heritage. I know today I am a legacy of my past and the way I function is dictated by my experiences. At times I wish I would have been spared certain pain and setbacks, as it would have produced a much less complicated me. My personality is riddled with flaws that I have accumulated during troubled and sedative years in my past. There are aspects of my traits which have stagnated and are undeveloped and it is only now becoming clear to me how much I indeed yet have to learn. As I am exposed to new areas of my reality, I am forced to excel and extend the limit of my capabilities. At times this is slightly unnerving, but also endlessly exhilarating. I am still a student of life.

The lovely BPG shared a link to an intriguing article in one of her posts the other day. It listed the top five regrets people express when lying on their dead beds. A fascinating read.

This hit close to home for me somewhat as one of my relatives passed away recently. Riddled with disease, his ultimate years were a time of endless suffering. Yet the last time I saw him, he still had that spark of joie de vivre in his eyes. If anyone loved life and enjoyed living, it was him indeed. I bet he had no regrets at all.

His passing once again brought the thin line between life and death into my perception. It reinforced my perpetual belief in living each day as it was our last. The time we are given here is so very precious and incredibly fragile. Just the simple act of being alive is a miracle - how foolish it is to waste it away on petty worries and arrogant pursuits.
We arrive here with nothing and leave with nothing as well. All we own in the end are the memories and recollections that leave with us. Eventually the only riches that matters are the treasures we carry within.

In Memory Of J (1939-2012)